Millstone
by AlexBeoulve
Summary: A school in a small town has an underhanded segregation between the honor roll and the rest of the student body in a play for more government funding. When members of the honor roll are pulled out of school for drug problems the principal calls in an expert to investigate where the drugs are coming from.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: Kuro belongs to Yana Toboso.**

**warnings: AU, OOC, mature themes, generally lame**

* * *

**Chapter 1**

Ciel jimmied the door to the desk open with a metal ruler. At first Sebastian had watched him dubiously, assuming that it would take something closer to a crowbar to get into the locked drawer, but when a resounding click echoed through the empty classroom and Ciel started carefully rifling (if you could really rifle carefully) through the contents of the desk Sebastian let out an impressed whistle.

"What are you, MacGyver?"

"I told you I don't get your 80s pop culture references."

"If you don't get it then how did you know it was from the 80s?"

"Everyone knows who MacGyver is. I wonder if your mouth were to stop moving if your brain would start working ..."

"That's from _Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy_."

"So you _can_ read, will wonders ever cease?"

"There was a movie too, and you should probably stop using phrases my grandmother says."

"Maybe you have a very hip grandmother."

"... No one says "hip" unless they're being ironic."

**xox**

It was late November, the first semester to Sebastian's senior year of high school. And if you'd have asked him in August, when it was still hot enough to wear summer clothes, as he waffled between picking one useless elective over another, if he could see himself in November breaking into a teacher's desk to look for evidence that they were selling drugs to students ... well he'd have laughed. Like, really laughed.

I mean, really, who does that?

Well besides Ciel, but he'd get to his annoying slave driver in a moment.

No, his final, _final_ year of school (well, high school) was upon him, and he had been so enthusiastic about it for the first few weeks he'd actually done all his assignments (as was the common ailment with most students). He was ready to get out of his small town, go to college, get a degree in ... fuck, something or other, and then find some dream job doing ... whatever it was you did after college and then wasting all six digits of his annual salary on big speakers, booze, and easy women.

Okay, so his life goals needing some ironing out, but he had four years of drinking himself stupid and sleeping through expensive lectures in his pajamas to work on it, so he wasn't overly concerned yet.

After the initial burst of scholastic energy had worn off of him and most everyone else things seemed to slow back down to the normal pace of doing just enough work to get by, staying awake till the crack of dawn, and sleeping most soundly through any class a good distance away from the band room (and truthfully, he could sleep through most of band practice too, until the clarinets started playing, there was just something about the sound clarinets made that he could feel _in his teeth_).

The sleeping was the first nail in the coffin.

**xox**

Sebastian shouted till he was blue in the face at teachers, the guidance counselor, and the vice principal, telling them that if he was passing the god damned class what did it matter how much he slept? He considered it a tiny victory when he could rile the staff up enough to where they'd be leaning across their respective desks, pointing their fingers at him accusingly, and yelling just as loudly back. Their middle aged faces red, usually neat hair falling out of place, as Sebastian cussed like a sailor and threw their teaching awards to the floor, breaking in thousands of unappreciated pieces.

Well ... that's what he told his friends anyway. He mostly slouched in different chairs in different offices, getting chewed out for thirty minutes to an hour. The only time he'd actually gotten pissed enough to raise his voice got cut short as soon as the school's assigned police officer walked into the room suddenly, leaving him with the very awkward insult of:

"WHY DON'T YOU STAY OUT OF MY BUSINESS YOU STUPID CUN-" Enter officer Aberline. "-country lady."

He hadn't told anyone that though.

What?

He could have gotten arrested!

It was one thing to be cool and rebellious and get detention every now and then, but getting slammed against a wall, handcuffed for a "perceived threat" to a teacher, and then getting dragged out to a cop car in front of God and everybody was something totally _else_.

So yeah, he'd yelled at the guidance counselor, for all of like, ten seconds. Which was apparently the second nail.

The third, and final nail in this metaphorical coffin was a little more complicated.

**xox**

On the second of November quarterly reports came out, letting student know where they stood as far as grades. In Sebastian's group of friends this led to a mass grounding, almost half of his friends suddenly had strict curfews or couldn't go out on the weekends at all until they brought their grades up.

As for pretty much all of the advance placement classes, the report cards were reason for celebration. Their parents were more lax than usual and for three straight weeks in a row there was always a party going on somewhere. Plus, they were all seniors now, leaving everyone feeling like they needed to soak up all the fond high school memories they could while they still had time (after March was the last chance they would have to take placement tests for college, so the motivation to party as hard as they possibly could before then was high).

The first weekend after the quarterly reports came out was the first time an honor roll student OD'ed on something. No one had thought much of it at the time. It wasn't like their town was overrun with drug dealers and hookers or anything, but there was always pot and X being circulated through the student body. As long as you didn't have a job and weren't on a sports team you didn't really have to worry about drug screening, and again there were never gang wars or whatever going on, so the anti-drug efforts of the police were pretty laid back.

The second weekend three students were taken to the hospital for over dosing.

In the middle of the week, between the second and third weekend, four AP students were taken out of school by their parents and sent to detox or rehab centers out of town.

**xox**

"Rehab? Like someone can just become a junkie overnight?" Sebastian had scoffed. He was sitting outside in the quad at lunch with his friend Joker.

The quad was at the center of the four buildings that made up the high school, a wide sidewalk covered by an awning met in the middle then split off to the entrances of the four different parts of the school. Around the covered path were a few metal picnic tables and trees. There was a waist high brick wall that made a square and housed a few bushes where he and Joker were sitting on the other side of smoking. Well, Joker was smoking, Sebastian was out of cigarettes and his friend smoked a trendy brand that smelt horrible.

"Well what are you gonna do?" Joker mused, taking a drag on his smelly clove cigarette. "I heard from Beast, who heard from Doll, who heard from Maurice-"

"Oh my God, just tell me." Sebastian said, rolling his eyes.

"Hey now," Joker frowned. "I'm just trying to establish the line of - ya know, information or whatever, so you know I'm not just making shit up."

"I never thought you were making it up ..."

"Anyway, so Maurice said that, Hannah right? Big tits Hannah? Like she couldn't even keep her head up in class and shit, she was so fucking high or whatever."

"So?" Sebastian shrugged. "I sleep more here than I do at home."

Joker flicked his clove, then took another long drag, the spicy smoke made Sebastian want to cough. "Yeah but Hannah's in AP classes, you sleep through that shit and you aren't able to catch up. Plus she was all ... like tweaky or something? Like couldn't sit still when she was awake and rubbing her arms. And it's not like her parents could just stay home and watch her all the time, so they sent her to rehab or something, got nothing to do with being a junkie probably."

"Probably." Sebastian drawled. "If she's like hooked on crack or whatever after a week she must've been like, super Life Time movie snorting."

"And the truth comes out, you watch Life Time movies and have a good cry." Joker grinned, dusting his pants off as he stood up.

"With a big tub of ice cream every time I'm on my period, you chauvinistic pig."

**xox**

The third weekend three honor roll students OD'ed, two more were taken out of school.

On Monday, Wendy, one of the three that had over dosed, died in the hospital.

Tuesday the only trained drug dog in town went through every locker in the school.

And on Wednesday, when the intercom asked Sebastian's home room teacher to send him to the office, he could have sworn he heard the sound of a nail being driven through wood in the empty hallways.

**xox**

"Oh my fucking God, I had a fucking root canal! Last I checked having fucking, fucking _prescription_ pain pills isn't fucking illegal!"

This time, he really was cursing and screaming. True story, that's really what he said.

"Yes Mr. Michaelis, you had a root canal in ... looks like July? And you're still in pain? Have you not thought about contacting your dentist about that?" The Principal, Mrs. Guelph (though everyone just called her Principal Victoria), had her hands folded under her chin as she regarded Sebastian calmly.

He was anything but calm though, he was pacing around in a circle in the claustrophobic, tacky, wood paneled office, ready to rip his hair out. The principal's hair out. Both.

"I'm not a, a fucking drug dealer! It was half a goddamned bottle of hydro!"

"Hydro?" The principal mimicked, raising one elderly eyebrow. She lifted the offending bottle to read. "It says 'Azdone' on here, is 'hydro' the street name?"

"Ohmyfuckinggod, everyone knows the hardcore pain medicine has hydrocodone or codeine in it!"

"Everyone being drug addicts?"

Sebastian was just about to punch a hole into the wood paneling and call the principal everything but a white woman when there was a knock on the door.

"Come in."

He half expected it to be Officer Aberline again, ready to taze and mace him into submission, and was genuinely surprised when another student came in. At least ... he looked like a student. He had on the white shirt and gray tie that they all had to wear, but Sebastian had never seen him before. And why did the principal let this kid in to their meeting anyway? Wasn't this shit supposed to be confidential?

"I apologize for being late. This town is a bit off the beaten path, we missed the exit and had to double back."

"That's quite all right, I was just letting Mr. Michaelis here let off some steam."

"Let off some fucking-? You know what you bi-" Sebastian stopped when the other boy came to stand next to him, scrutinizing him.

"Good lord but you're tall, how old are you?"

Caught off guard mid foul mouthed rant, he answered. "Eighteen."

"You're a senior still? Are you rude _and_ slow?"

Sebastian hated Ciel from the moment he met him.

**xox**

Since their school was a public school they received more funding from the government the higher their test scores were.

A long time ago the policy had been for each teacher to try their hardest to reach and educate every student, however, that policy significantly thinned their resources, leading to just subpar testing scores overall. Over the years they gradually began implementing advanced placement testing and classes, finding that they got much better results from concentrating most of their energy on over educating those already prone to succeed.

This new method led to there being a large gap of standards at their school, amongst students yes, but mostly teachers. The children had no idea they were being segregated and conditioned to stay in their placement group, but the teachers knew who was making more money and who wasn't. Knowing that, the teachers who weren't doing AP classes had even less enthusiasm to work with the students they _did_ have, making the chasm between the honor roll and the rest of the students even wider.

The system was in place and working well (as far as funding went anyway) until the AP students specifically started being pulled from school. Almost twenty so far, and in a small high school like theirs it was a significant blow to their numbers.

Of course none of the students realized the implications of the event (being in the dark about the government funding and all), so anytime anyone was questioned by the police or school they all became tight lipped. Adults didn't realize that no matter what perceived separation there was between them that a teenager didn't turn on another teenager (unless there was like, a boyfriend stolen between them or something, but even then, if snitching would lead back to them they'd put their grudges aside).

Of course that was all well and good for the honor roll because they would all have scholarships waiting for them after they finished their rehab or whatever.

Sebastian wasn't so lucky. He had the most lukewarm grades and SAT scores you could find, everything was carefully just above remediation. He was counting on student loans and his parents help to get into college, which had never been an issue before. That is, until that second nail, when he'd yelled (for seriously, it was for like, ten fucking seconds, Jesus Christ) at the guidance counselor.

**xox**

He'd been excused (suspended) from school for the day, and was expected to have a three point essay like apology ready by tomorrow. His mother, who had to leave work to come get him, was livid, so mad she wasn't even yelling, just ... some really creepy hissing or growling or ... _something_ only parents can do (particularly mothers, it was like when they gave birth they lactated, destroyed their vagina's, and received a tiny bit of Satan to summon at will).

"I promise you Sebastian, if you get expelled in your senior year - that's it, that's just it," his mother had Satan hissed/growled, as Sebastian tried to decide on sinking down and becoming one with the leather interior of the car or jumping out the window to safety. "You get expelled? You're getting a GED and getting a job. You want to go to college? Pay for it yourself you delinquent."

The principal knew this, of course, because during the parent teacher conference the next day his mother had divulged her threat to the guidance counselor, in order to assure her that there would be no more trouble out of her son.

So Sebastian was basically being blackmailed.

**xox**

"So you're what, like a private eye or something?" Sebastian asked irritably, arms crossed as he slouched in one of the stiff leather chairs that faced the principal's desk.

"Something like that," Ciel replied conversationally from the chair next to him. The kid was odd, to say the least. He was dressed like someone his age _would_ dress, but his clothes looked too new, like he'd just bought them that day, giving him the air of a model in a catalog, wearing something trendy you'd see at a skate park while doing something wholesome ... like baking fucking cookies or some shit. He was definitely too clean cut for a sixteen year old (and hey, for the record? Sebastian was _not_ slow, his birthday just happened to be in summer and the year he was supposed to start kindergarten he, his older brother, and parents had been in the middle of moving so they just enrolled him a year later that usual. Seriously, he wasn't fucking slow).

"If you've done this shit-"

"Mr. Michaelis-"

"If you've done this _stuff_ before," Sebastian corrected, shooting the principal a glare. "then why do you need my help?"

"While it's not impossible to infiltrate-" (Yeah, he really uses words like that in regular sentences) "-a social circle by myself, it does take longer. As I understand it one of your classmates has already died because of this dope ring-" (Really, what was this a 1970s after school special? Who says "dope"?) "-so time really is of the essence-" ("Time is of the essence"? Now he's in a mid evil fantasy novel) "-and since you're already embedded in the social network of the student body having your help will cut my time practically in half."

Though he'd mentioned Wendy's death (or a "classmate's" death) Ciel looked anything but empathetic. He was more like someone trying to sell you a good car, you both knew the car was good, he was just driving the selling points home so that it would seem irresponsible _not_ to buy the car. When speaking his posture had stayed perfect and he had switched eye contact smoothly between Sebastian and the principal. He would make a damn good politician.

"So ... you want me to be a snitch?" Sebastian finally huffed, the full weight of the job being forced on him finally hitting home.

"Not really," Ciel replied, with his creepy blank stare. "You'll just be assisting me with befriending your friends and acquaintances, and giving me any and all information on them-" When Sebastian started to protest Ciel raised his hand to stop him and continued. "-anything you tell me about students will be in confidence unless it pertains to the issue at hand."

"So I just trust you?" he seethed, slouching lower the angrier he got.

"It's in my contract," the younger boy assured. "Nothing you tell me or that I witness will be revealed to the staff of the school or the police unless it involves the case or a direct threat is leveled on someone or themselves, standard psychiatric or lawyer fair."

The way Ciel talked was grating on Sebastian.

Seeing no way out, he huffed. "What do I get out of it?"

"You don't get expelled," Ciel deadpanned, one eyebrow cocked in what would pass for an amused expression on his so far expressionless face.

"You also get a letter of recommendation from me," Principal Victoria interjected just as Sebastian sat up to start cursing again. "As long as your scores are above remedial I'll write to each and every college you apply to."

Sebastian drummed his fingers on the armrest of his chair, looking back and forth between the principal and Ciel. With his grades (even though they weren't low, they still weren't high) having a recommendation from his principal would definitely help him getting into a better college, and, more importantly, could lower the interest rate on student loans and even help with grants.

He weighed his options; he was sure none of his friends were involved with this hard drug shit, and Ciel had apparently done this several times at other schools and had never been made (he'd resolve the issue then de-enroll, no one ever knowing who'd ratted them out), and lastly and most importantly, Sebastian wouldn't get expelled (there-by losing his main source of higher educational funds) _and_ would have significant help in getting into college.

So he agreed, and was bound to what might as well have been the devil himself.

**xox**

Which brings us up to speed, about two weeks later, and back to going through teacher's desks.

Even though the principal had assured Ciel that it had to be students trafficking the drugs, he was a thorough little bastard. His reasoning, as far as Sebastian could tell, seemed pretty sound.

"There are ten times as many students as there are teachers. Even though the staff are respectable members of the community they are adults and therefore have easier access to both cash flow and the means by which to bring contraband into a town that otherwise doesn't have any organized drug trade. Even though the principal is more than likely correct in thinking it's a student, because if a teacher was responsible the secret wouldn't be nearly this safe guarded by teenagers, it would be sloppy to not eliminate the easiest to eliminate suspects first before moving on to the larger, and much more difficult, group."

Yes, that's verbatim. That is exactly what he said when Sebastian asked.

Which led him to just ... not ask a lot of times.

The kid was much less awkward when dealing with other students. He'd be a bit outgoing, friendly, talk more normally and about more normal things. Maybe only because Sebastian was looking for it, but he still managed to notice little tells in his act. He still wore clothes that looked way too new, still let the odd phrase slip out every now and again, and Sebastian could swear that when Ciel and Joker had been talking about a band that Ciel was quoting straight off of the band's bio page on the internet. That suspicion was only strengthened when Beast and Dagger had asked Ciel about a movie he'd claimed to have seen and he'd abruptly excused himself to answer a text message. Ciel had come back from tapping on his phone with an oddly ... professional opinion on the film, and Sebastian would bet anything that he'd just looked up a synopsis or review.

No one else seemed to notice these things though, which made Sebastian begrudgingly accept that maybe Ciel really was good at this, and he was only noticing because he was looking too hard.

Even though Sebastian couldn't directly disobey the younger teen (otherwise he'd get expelled, lose his letter of recommendation, etc etc), he was trying everything he could to annoy him. He would do almost anything (just short of murder or like, eating a cat) to push Ciel into acting like a regular person instead of this ... weird ... half robot half Sherlock Holmes thing he had going on.

**xox**

"You want a smoke?" Sebastian asked one day at lunch, offering his almost empty pack to Ciel.

He held up his hand and shook his head. "I don't, I have asthma."

Well, if he ever needed to kill the brat he could always force him to run on a treadmill in cold weather. As he wasn't at quite the murdering stage yet he settled on exhaling his smoke into Ciel's face.

Ciel coughed lightly, trying to wave the second hand out of his face. "That was kind of rude, asthma aside."

"Yeah, what the hell Sebastian?" Beast assisted, shoving at Sebastian's shoulder, making her dozens of bracelets clink noisily together. "What if he had an asthma attack? You prick."

"I wouldn't have an attack from just that," Ciel assured her, (fake) laughing. "I can handle your cigarettes better than whatever those crazy things are that you smoke Joker, no offense."

"None taken," Joker said laughing (not fake laughing). "They're a required taste."

The next day Sebastian went out and bought a pack of clove cigarettes. He'd smoke through the pain to get on Ciel's nerves.

**xox**

"Wouldn't it be better to like, search their houses? After they brought the cops and the dog to school I doubt anybody's keeping shit at school anymore," Sebastian mused as he leaned against the desk Ciel was looking through.

"We wouldn't necessarily need to find actual drugs, it could be cash, a list of student's names that match up with the overdose victims, anything really, we won't know it till we find it."

Even though Ciel had said that Sebastian would only be helping him with getting to know the other students, he'd somehow also been recruited to unlawful searches, look out, and (as far as he could tell) muscle. He wasn't sure how much good he could do since he didn't know what they were looking for (obviously, if that previous conversation was anything to go by) but Ciel insisted (more like ordered) Sebastian's presence during these little excursions during lunch period. He had tried to get out of it by complaining about low blood sugar (he didn't really have a problem with that, he was just hungry and wanted a cigarette and didn't want to be going through teacher's personal belongings) but Ciel had started to carry peanut butter crackers with him everywhere, leaving Sebastian feeling like a dog being rewarded for preforming a task.

Sebastian was just about to comment on how Ciel should bring drinks too if he was going to pick the absolutely most dry snack he could think of when the door to the classroom started to open.

The drawer was still open and both of them were standing in the empty room alone and totally suspicious and for a brief moment Sebastian thought that the nightmare might be over, that they'd be caught, or made, or whatever you called it, and Ciel would have to leave town ... when the younger boy pulled Sebastian by the collar, pushed him back against the desk (effectively closing the drawer), and kissed him.

Like ... _really_ kissed him. Not like the over dramatic pressing of lips together that kids did when they didn't know what they were doing, no, Ciel got _up in there_.

It was a good thing that Sebastian's back was facing the door because he was pretty sure you shouldn't look like you were being chased by a serial killer when you were making out with someone. Not that it was ... _bad _or anything. Yeah, Ciel had basically shoved his tongue into Sebastian's mouth with no warning, but he was also chewing on Sebastian's bottom lip, sliding their tongues together in a much more sensual way than he'd started, and ... well, honestly, if Ciel hadn't almost thrown him on top of the desk Sebastian's knees _may_ have given out.

"Hey!"

Ciel disengaged suddenly, and goddammit Sebastian accidentally leaned towards him trying to keep kissing him.

"Oh crap." (Who says that. Really? Like, only kids on the Disney channel say "crap")

"Will you two get back to your class? Do that shit after school!" (See? Even teachers don't say "crap")

Ciel mumbled an apology and had to drag Sebastian along behind him, such was the daze he was in.

God, how long had it been since he'd felt some boobs? Or hell, even made out with someone? It must've been a lot fucking longer than he'd realized, otherwise he wouldn't be dumbstruck from kissing the person he hated more than anyone else in the entire world.

Once in the hallway, Ciel made a beeline for the stairwell, where he deposited Sebastian's useless ass as he caught his breath.

"Sorry," Ciel said, wiping his mouth with the back of his sleeve and ... was Robot Holmes blushing? "It was the best option."

"Most people who kiss me think that," Sebastian responded, maybe a couple of seconds too late to be considered a witty retort, but Ciel grimaced at him and turned just slightly redder, so he was going to say it worked.

"Don't be such a useless idiot next time," the younger scolded, trying (it seemed) to insult his confidence back. "You're a teenager aren't you? You should be used to coming up with excuses on the fly-"

"I didn't really have the chance to before you were all over me-"

"I told you it was the best option. What other reason did we have for being in there alone? Neither of us are in that teacher's class and I had to shut the desk drawer where he wouldn't notice-"

"You don't have to justify yourself to me, I know it's hard to resist my animal magnetism, though it might be my cologne, bitches love my cologne."

"No it was probably your natural musk, drove me mad with desire."

"You said it, not me," Sebastian grinned.

"It was a joke," Ciel replied flatly. He was frowning and his cheeks were still pink.

"So you know what jokes are?"

"Yes, you having animal magnetism, that's a good one."

The bell rang and the halls started filling up with everyone coming back from lunch.

"Whatever, _you_ kissed _me_ pretty boy," Sebastian said loud enough where people going up the stairs could hear, if anyone had been on the stairs right then.

The little punk jabbed Sebastian hard where a kidney was, or liver, something he needed. He breathed out a curse as he tried to move away from the younger teen, but Ciel was pushing into his right side and backed him into a corner on his left. "I'll take that as a compliment," Ciel whispered dangerously, twisting his fingers harder into his side. "Now forget it and keep your damn mouth shut."

Sebastian had been about to call Ciel a little shit and a few other choice phrases when he realized that the younger boy had actually said "damn", dropping his Disney censoring act.

"I'll see you at third break," Ciel said, still glaring, still flushed, still ... acting like a person, and when he walked off Sebastian could swear the kid was maneuvering quickly around the other students, trying to put distance between them.

Even though he was pretty sure he was bleeding internally and going to need a transplant of some kind (okay, probably not, but shit that had hurt more than it should have) Sebastian was smirking, he liked flustered Ciel, it was the closest thing to normal he'd seen.

Though short of walking up to the other boy in the hall and man handling his junk in front of everyone ... he wasn't sure what to do with his new found information.

**xox**

It was third break and Sebastian was leaning on the other side of the brick garden in the quad and still struggling through the pack of cloves he'd bought. He hadn't noticed a reaction from Ciel when he'd started blowing the spicy smoke into his face (when no one else was around), besides the other teen waving it out of his face as he continued tapping away at his phone. Sebastian couldn't bear to chain smoke the harsh cigarettes, so if nothing else he might end up quitting or something.

Speaking of Ciel, he was decidedly tardy in meeting Sebastian. He smirked again, he couldn't seem to stop, wondering if he'd accidentally got the hormones flowing in the prepubescent looking mother fucker and Ciel was somewhere still blushing like a twelve year old girl.

He sighed, trying to figure out how he could get away with accosting Ciel without like, getting kicked in his shit or something.

"Asshole, make fun of me for a year for smoking cloves and then just sit there like you're cool," Joker teased, as he came up and leaned against the garden with Sebastian.

"Yeah, they're growing on me, like a tumor does," Sebastian coughed.

"Why're you smoking them then?" The red head asked, taking Sebastian's coughing fit as an opportunity to steal one of the black cigarettes. Sebastian shrugged, not feeling like coming up with an excuse, snatching his pack back from his friend.

"Mooch."

"Hypocrite."

They smoked in silence (besides Sebastian's occasional coughing) and after about five minutes Joker cleared his throat. "So like, since everyone ditched us or something, can I ask you something?"

"I'm not going to prom with you," Sebastian snorted, flicking his butt into the grass.

"You only say that because you haven't seen my dress," Joker replied, batting his eyelashes coyly.

"Let me guess ... pink and slutty? You do know what I like."

"Nah, nah, but seriously, what's the deal with you and that Ciel kid?"

Sebastian glanced over at his friend, thinking about all the little inconsistencies he'd picked up on in Ciel's act and wondering if Joker had noticed the same thing.

"What do you mean?" he asked cautiously, not wanting to be blamed for blowing their cover or whatever.

"Awh ya know, like," here he gestured vaguely. "Like, he's been here for all of what? Like a couple of weeks? You're attached at the hip and disappear at lunch, and I heard you got caught making out or something in a classroom."

"What?" Sebastian snapped his head to the side. How the hell did that get out? It had been like, two fucking periods and that was a rumor already? And who spread it? A goddamned teacher? Fucking teachers gossiping about students to other students, what back-ass-wards universe was this?

"Hey, I mean if you like dudes now or whatever that's fine, just wanted you to know you don't have to be all like in the closet or something like we're gonna be all bigot-y or some shit."

Sebastian was trying to form up a response, half between an impassioned speech on how great tits were and how he'd never cheat on the metaphorical pair of breasts he would marry in the future, and just plain demanding on who the hell was spreading the rumor. Or fact. Well it sounded much less nefarious when he put it like that ...

Joker, being the damned good friend he was, nudged Sebastian with his elbow, giving him the chance to shut up as Beast, Dagger, and Ciel walked up.

"You guys take the damn scenic route or some shit?" Joker chuckled. "We've been out here for like ten minutes."

"Some asshole put some kind of hardcore cherry bomb in a toilet," Beast fumed. "Busted a damn pipe and the whole hallway flooded. We had to walk all the way around the building."

"Yeah, aren't you supposed to do that to fucking porta potties or something?" Dagger added, more amused than Beast obviously. "Good thing the idiot got outta there, probably would've lost an eye as much juice as it had."

"Ew, don't say juice when you're talking about an exploding commode," Beast said, shoving Dagger.

Joker and Dagger then proceeded to come up with different phrases that would sound gross in relation, including, but not limited to things like: trapped gas, explosive diarrhea ... you get the idea.

Ciel seemed unperturbed by the events, balls deep in his phone, only pausing to (fake) laugh at appropriate moments. Sebastian wanted to tell him about the rumor (fact) that was being spread around and call him a floozy (that totally sounded like something Ciel would say) for the chance to see him get all aggravated again.

When he was suddenly hit with a much more ... abso-fuckin-lutely better idea.

"Hey Ciel," Sebastian said, trying (really super hard) not to grin and cackle like a maniac, as he motioned him closer. Sebastian pulled the younger boy to him, wrapping an arm around his waist. Ciel stiffened immediately, his cheeks coloring when he realized the other three kids had stopped their banter and were staring.

"What-"

"Joker figured us out," Sebastian interrupted, appreciating how Ciel's eyes went wide for just a second thinking he was referring to their undercover opts or whatever. "They're my friends and shit so you don't have to be all secret with them."

"Sebas-!"

"So yeah, we're going out."

You know on cartoons how someone would get all super angry and stuff and their face would go all red and then someone else would like, fry an egg on their head?

Yeah, that was pretty much Ciel right then.

"Fucking gaaaay," Dagger grumbled, causing Beast and Sebastian to nearly break their necks giving him a double take. The blonde looked up from his wallet he was retrieving a bill from. "Oh, not you guys, I bet Joker ten dollars he was like your son outta wedlock or some shit."

Beast slapped Dagger on the back of his head. "Sebastian would had to have gotten someone pregnant when he was two, dumbass."

"Weirder shit has happened!" Dagger protested as Joker pocketed his money.

"Don't worry, I'll think of your blossoming gay love as I buy myself cigarettes," Joker sang, dramatically putting a hand to his heart.

Sebastian would've had a snappy comeback, but he was too busy trying to keep smiling while Ciel was pinching the shit out of him where no one could see.

Going to bruise? Probably. Worth it? Totally.

* * *

_a/n: tralala_


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer: Kuro belongs to Yana Toboso!**

**warnings: AU, OOC, mature themes, generally lame, Ciel being as interesting as dirt**

**beta'd by Ar! thank you!**

* * *

**Chapter 2**

Ciel had to do a lot of things when he was on assignment. He'd listened to nothing but rap music for three months straight, become better than he'd like to admit at hacky sack, and once had even had to dress in drag every other weekend for a month (don't ask). But he'd never, _never_ had to put up with what could only be called semi-sexual assault on a daily basis.

Hand holding, hugging or cuddling, _kissing_, and the most ludicrous array of pet names he'd ever heard were forced into his daily routine.

Pet names that ranged from the normal (baby, sweety, darling); and then progressed to the bizarre (sex coconut, sugar buns, arm candy) ... he couldn't make those up if he tried, and his mental image of Sebastian laying awake at night conjuring them up seemed so believable he'd almost accepted it as fact.

That first day, when Sebastian had declared to his friends that they were "going out", Ciel had slammed the huge idiot against the side of one of the brick buildings and God help him, if he'd had any kind of weapon he'd have used it.

"I don't see what you're so pissed about, I'm fucking sexy as hell," had been the buffoon's excuse for himself. How he was able to look cocky while half doubled over from getting prodded hard and menacingly in his gut was mildly impressive.

"You 'don't see'? Let me enlighten you. You're complicating everything with this. Tell them tomorrow that we've broken up or are just friends or _whatever_ it is you say," Ciel had hissed, fist twitching with the need to hit Sebastian right across his smug face.

"Now _that_ would complicate things," Sebastian had smirked (when had he started this smirking thing? Ciel just wanted to hit him hard enough where the muscles in his face wouldn't allow it anymore. He was rapidly becoming fixated with beating Sebastian's head in and he wasn't entirely sure that was healthy).

"Why? Teenagers get together and break up all the time."

"And I'm guessing you've never been on either end of _that_ before-" (How much did brass knuckles cost? If he ordered them online tonight would express shipping get them here by tomorrow?) "-when kids break up it's fucking messy bro, it would make even less sense for us to be friends than it already does."

Sebastian had straightened up and was rubbing at his stomach experimentally and wincing.

"Why doesn't it make any sense for us to be friends?" Ciel demanded. He was ready to blow holes in whatever half-cocked reasoning the big idiot had.

"You're fucking boring dude," Sebastian shrugged matter-of-factly, and that infuriating smirk was curling his lips up. "Why would I wanna hang out with someone as lame as you unless you're putting out?"

**xox**

He'd sensed it from the first class he'd attended (body language was more telling than anything someone could say), no one in this school wanted anything to do with him.

Even if kids these days were too caught up with what they were wearing, who was talking to who, where who had been seen with whom, and what they'd been wearing when they'd been seen, there was always at least a couple of people interested in a new student. Especially in a school as small as this, having someone enroll from out of town, or better, out of state, was always undeniably interesting to at minimum two to five people. After circulating in the same social circles for most of their life teenagers were drawn to the perceived new or exciting.

Ciel was not vain, but even polite interest had been at absolute zero since the first day.

There was only the initial looking up from text books (more often covert cell phones), then sudden and complete aloofness. Ciel couldn't help but narrow his eyes slightly, looking over his new home room, and wonder at what was amiss here. Was there some piece of information, some large incident that made the kids in the school so closed off?

It was curious, at the least, and suspicious, at the most paranoid.

**xox**

As the situation was explained to his father and himself over several e-mails and phone calls, everything seemed a bit too dire to go at it alone (building up connections from scratch), and so an assistant was requested.

Principal Victoria had sent information on a dozen candidates whom Ciel had poured through on the plane, but Sebastian, from the beginning, had always seemed like the only viable option.

"Because he's good looking?" His Aunt Anne had asked, sipping a gourmet latte, a brand that no one in coach had probably ever heard of.

"Please don't say that teenagers are good looking, some one will get the wrong idea," Ciel drawled. Usually his father would come to help him get set up with assignments, but he was busy, his aunt was bored, and Ciel didn't care one way or the other.

"But really," she mused, flipping through the different files on the tablet. "Why this boy? There are some kids on here with higher grades, or who are more athletic."

He leaned over and tapped on Sebastian's file, opening the extra notes the principal had included. "But he's the only one who's desperate. Him being smarter or stronger won't do me any good if he's not one hundred percent loyal. I need someone who won't lie to me. Getting bad information is something I'm not going to have time for."

His aunt nodded, then grinned. "Are they really going to plant some damning evidence in his locker?"

"Only if there isn't something already there," Ciel snorted, leaning to his right to wave the flight attendant down.

**xox**

The definition of an erogenous zone is an area of the body that is extremely sensitive, and, if stimulated, could be arousing.

There are common erogenous zones that many people share, such as genitalia and etc., but some people can have a heightened sexual reaction from being touched somewhere that would usually seem completely innocent.

_Apparently_ there was one such place right under Ciel's ear, part way on his neck.

He'd been at his locker sorting out the books he'd need for the later half of the day when Sebastian had snuck up on him. After a week or so of being molested at random Ciel was (sadly) almost used to it, so hadn't thought to elbow the older boy discretely before he'd closed in.

"Let me walk you to class~?" Sebastian had said in his overly sugary voice, one arm sliding around Ciel's middle and pulling him back against his broad chest.

Annoyed, embarrassed, and maybe just a dash of homicidal, Ciel whispered irritably: "When are you going to drop this?"

"When you stop being such a tool box," Sebastian chuckled, rubbing his face in Ciel's hair. The younger boy felt his face heat up against his will.

"I hope you get hit by a truck."

"Awh, you're so cute when you're pissed, like a little kitty, hmm, let me carry your books kitten?" (Great, another idiotic pet name) Ciel tried stomping on Sebastian's foot, but the older boy was wearing boots and hadn't even noticed.

"I can't even describe how much I hate you-ow!" On the door to Ciel's locker a little piece of metal was warped out of place, exposing the tiny jagged bit that he'd pricked his finger on, and a small bead of blood rose up.

"Want me to kiss it?" Sebastian offered, mouth way too close to Ciel's ear and voice a suggestive octave lower.

"No," Ciel growled, pulling out the last book he needed with his left hand as he sucked on the bleeding digit on his right.

"Fine, douche, I'll kiss you here then."

As before mentioned, there had been a lot of hand holding, cuddling, and even kissing going on over the past week. Ciel was going through the very strenuous process of not getting flushed when Sebastian's lips and hands were all over him, and had succeeded to a certain point, which was why he didn't think much of what Sebastian had said.

When the older teen's lips touched (warm) against Ciel's neck, right under his ear an unfamiliar chill ran down his spine. Goosebumps spread over his body in a hot wave and his knees nearly buckled, causing him to flail out of Sebastian's grasp and grab onto his locker for support.

"What the _hell_ did you just do to me!" He demanded, slapping a hand over his neck and turning to glare at the other boy. Sebastian blinked, seeming to be just as surprised.

"I dunno, do you have a bruise there or something?" Sebastian moved Ciel's hand, touching at his neck. Ciel felt the same chill zip through him at the gentle exploration, so smacked Sebastian's hand away, his face completely red and his breathing more than a little agitated.

"Stop it!"

It took about three seconds for realization to to spread across Sebastian's face in the form of the most devious looking grin that Ciel had ever seen outside of paintings of the devil.

"Oh, it doesn't hurt, you _like_ it~"

Ciel then took part in what was probably the most undignified struggle he'd ever had the displeasure of being in, though to anyone who saw ... it looked like what you would call a slap fight. The younger tried to wiggle his way out from between Sebastian's arms, pushing and hitting at him (mostly in the face), while the older tried to pin Ciel's arms to his sides and suck on his neck.

Weakness now revealed, Sebastian went for the spot on Ciel's neck any chance he got, delightedly catching the younger boy every time his knees buckled.

**xox**

There were several things you needed to do in order to take a punch to the face.

One, go with the hit.

Moving in the direction you were being hit (as in, not towards the fist) increases how long the hit actually lasts, there by _decreasing_ the force you're getting hit with.

Two, (assuming there's no way to avoid the blow) close your jaw.

Having your mouth open could lead to broken teeth or accidentally biting your own tongue.

Three (again, assuming there's no way to block, evade, etc.), try to take the hit on your forehead.

Everything else on your face (teeth, nose, eyes) were all capable of being damaged in some way by a fist, where as to permanently damage your forehead would take something more like a blow from a hammer, rather than a punch.

**xox**

"So like, is Doll okay, or what?" Joker asked one morning.

Everyone tended to get to school as much as an hour earlier than necessary, mostly to socialize, and in rare cases to catch up on homework or studying. Sebastian's small group of close friends was no exception, so Ciel had to drag himself out of bed much sooner then he'd have liked. Trained though he was at adapting to different situations, he had _never _come across teenagers that willingly got up _early_. Just one more thing on the growing list of why this particular assignment was so irritating.

The five of them were sitting and leaning against the brick enclosure off to the side of the quad, chatting, or in Ciel's case, trying to remain conscious. Sebastian liked to take advantage of Ciel's lowered defenses in the early morning, and had pulled the him onto his lap where Ciel only groggily swatted at him when Sebastian tried to read his phone.

"Why wouldn't she be okay?" Sebastian asked, arms around Ciel and fingers laced together on his stomach, trapping him there. Sebastian's voice sounded deep, like rumbling thunder, and Ciel had to shake his head to keep from leaning back and just going to sleep.

"I heard she was like, crying in the bathroom yesterday or something," Joker replied, cigarette in his mouth as he started patting down his pockets looking for a lighter.

"Oh my God, how the hell do you find this shit out?" Beast grumbled indignantly, bouncing up and down and rubbing her arms to keep warm. Apparently, Beast was very hot natured, so resisted wearing winter clothes until she absolutely had to. Sebastian had told Ciel this after having drawn attention to her ... _bouncing_ to keep warm sometimes and how her ... "headlights" would always be "on".

Some people watched birds, Sebastian watched breasts.

"What, don't you wanna know if she's like, upset or something?" Joker frowned, taking the clove out of his mouth.

"_I _already knew," Beast huffed. "Nobody else was supposed to know."

"So what you just keep shit like that from us? We're her friends too." Joker was so laid back that seeing him get even a little angry was pretty rare. Where as Beast had a tendency to hit people when she got mad (Ciel could empathize). So it wasn't very surprising when Dagger was suddenly really interested in his mp3 player and Sebastian started licking Ciel's ear.

"It's none of you _boy's_ damn business!"

"Unless it's some shit about periods or something, yeah it's _our_ business, since we're fucking _friends_!"

"I don't see anyone else all up in her shit! Admit it, you're just fucking nosy as hell! You don't even care what it's about!"

"So, do you have like, games on your phone?" Sebastian mumbled to Ciel, chin resting on his shoulder as he completely ignored the argument going on only two feet away.

"No," Ciel mumbled back, so tired he copied Sebastian. Plus it was ridiculously cold today, if Sebastian was going to be all over him anyway might as well enjoy the free space heater.

"Everyone's got games on their phone."

"I am not fucking nosy! Someone told _me_! What do you think, I go running through girl's bathrooms or some shit!"

"I don't," Ciel answered Sebastian. "What games do you have?"

"That sounds like you, you fucking creepy ass! You always know shit you shouldn't know! You probably sit up with your feet on a toilet and fucking take notes!"

"I got like what the phone came with, some stupid like, matching shapes thing and some hangman bullshit," Sebastian replied, digging his phone out of his pocket without letting Ciel go, then holding it out in front of them to show him. The phone was a couple of years old, Ciel wasn't sure if it could receive e-mails or get on the internet or not. Though he'd had mild to bad service since he'd arrived in town, so Sebastian's older phone probably didn't stand a chance. Ciel was feeling so very sleepy, and he was so completely cozy where he was, so was just about to offer to play hangman with Sebastian when the fight (two feet away) finally erupted.

"God, why do you have to be such a fucking bitch!"

Beast hauled back and slapped Joker (what looked like) as hard as she could, the sharp skin to skin contact followed by the clinking of her dozens of bracelets. Joker, who had been crouched on top of the brick garden, had to catch himself to keep from falling over. Beast turned on her heel and stomped away, Joker cursing and chasing after her, and from a distance you could hear them continue shouting at each other across the yard.

Ciel, Dagger, and Sebastian sat in silence for a second, till Sebastian cleared his throat and turned to Dagger. "So like, what's going on with Doll?"

"Maurice and her might be breaking up," Dagger shrugged, taking his headphones off.

Ciel frowned, looking up from Sebastian's phone. The situation hadn't seemed worthy of the fight that just broke out. So had Beast told Dagger where as she didn't want to tell Joker? Or had Joker and Dagger already known and Beast was angry about that?

Every school had a different infrastructure, or hierarchy, that you could only follow if you'd been there for a while or if you were (not to be a braggart) Ciel. It was the first week of December and he still, sadly, didn't grasp the students here very well. Only two days ago had he finally finished going through all the classrooms and files of the faculty, finding nothing suspicious or noteworthy. He now had to begin the difficult process of becoming integrated with the other students. Besides Sebastian, his acquaintances only consisted of Beast, Dagger, and Joker (they used to have a fifth member to their group, Doll, but since she had started dating a boy named Maurice who had a much larger group of friends she hadn't been spending as much time with _her_ friends). That was exactly where Ciel's line of influence started and ended, and he was using the word influence liberally. Sebastian's three close friends, while they were always polite and friendly with Ciel, didn't talk to him the way they talked to each other.

Before third break Beast and Dagger would always wait on Ciel before they walked out to the quad. But he noticed that when they saw him approach they would often change the subject of their conversations. When people were talking about, for example, the death of a relative, their facial expressions would often be pinched, as in they were both upset yet trying to be comforting to the other person as well. When those same two people suddenly started talking about (for example again) a new album for a band, well, the change in expression was ridiculously obvious, whether you could hear their conversation or not.

Ciel was trying to decide if their cagey behavior was anything of merit, or simply a peculiarity. Regardless, the fact that they didn't feel comfortable discussing certain things with him even after he and Sebastian had started "dating" meant that he had a significant amount of work to do in a social circle that should have already accepted him.

As Sebastian and Ciel headed (hand in hand) to their home room, he opted to breach the subject. "What's going on with those three?"

"Besides all the like, unreleased sexual tension? Not much," Sebastian snorted, swinging their arms like two five year olds.

Ciel tugged on Sebastian's hand, forcing him to hold still. "Sexual tension? Between whom?"

The older boy opened his mouth then shut it again, regarding Ciel warily. "Why do you care?"

"All three of them act off, you can either tell me why, and I'll forget it, or you can try to keep it from me and I'll consider both you and them suspect in what's going on."

Sebastian let go of Ciel, burying his hands in his pockets. "You're such a fucking tool box."

Ciel put his own hands in his pockets, not sure what to do with them since this was the first time in a while he'd managed to bother Sebastian enough where the older boy didn't want to bother _him_.

"Well I guess you can go all Secret Squirrel or whatever because that isn't my shit to drag out and tell you," Sebastian finally said under his breath as they passed people in the halls.

"I told you that whatever you tell me is in confidence-"

"There's some shit you just don't talk about bro, except to like a therapist or something."

Ciel frowned. Working up a profile on someone was easier the more information you had. Sure, he could force Sebastian's hand and demand to be told the personal details of his friends, but at the end of the day Ciel doubted very seriously that whatever issues or secrets they were holding had anything to do with the case (even though he'd just told Sebastian otherwise). Besides, strong-arming Sebastian over what was probably useless information would only be detrimental to the already shaky partnership they had.

A happy asset was a helpful asset. And hopefully also an asset less inclined to PDA ...

Sebastian stopped outside the classroom, turning to face Ciel. "You're not gonna like, bug them about it or something are you?"

"Why would I?" Ciel replied.

"You bug me about everything," Sebastian said wryly, only a hint of a smirk present.

"Well you aren't here for your good looks." Ciel deadpanned, remembering his Aunt's joke.

"Ah, but you admit that I _am_ good looking," Sebastian whispered, leaning in and kissing Ciel on the cheek in the still mostly crowded corridor.

"I hope a tree falls right on your stupid face," Ciel whispered back, smiling sweetly.

Or maybe he didn't need to keep this particular asset happy. Maybe he needed to beat it into submission.

**xox**

"What does 'alternative' mean these days?" Aunt Anne had asked. They were in the back of a hired SUV now, the town Ciel was going to was a two and half hour drive from the nearest airport.

"I honestly don't know anymore," Ciel sighed.

Back in the simpler days of his youth (only about four years ago, really) a quick internet search could have given him every bit of background he needed on how to fit in with other children. Such and such singer was popular, such and such brand of clothes was "in", and such and such vampire movie was the cinema masterpiece of the decade, so all he had to do was like (or at least be informed) on those particular things and he'd be immediately accepted and well liked among his peers.

Things had turned out so much more complicated than that though.

You couldn't like such and such singer because they were singing pop music and pop music was only for empty headed teenage girls, you couldn't dress in the brand that was "in" or you were a prep-y that had no sense of style or individuality, and don't even mention vampires, movie or otherwise, because they were just too "main stream" now, and were much cooler before anyone liked them.

Fitting in with a "popular" crowd was _ten times_ easier than doing the same with what Principal Victoria had called an "alternative" group. But since it was an adult using the phrase it could mean almost _anything_. Ciel could be walking into a group of kids that pierced their lips when they were bored while they watched 80s movies, or they could all have pink hair and wear cat ears as an everyday accessory, or kids who made foam swords to outfit their army for a fake country and went out into the woods to wage pretend battle on one another.

The hundreds of prospects were exhausting to consider, so he had ordered clothes that were as nondescript as possible and would buy more if needed.

"By the way," Anne hummed. "Vince said there may be bad reception here so they went ahead and set up a land line at your apartment."

Ciel glanced questioningly at her. "Aren't you staying?"

"I can't, this is just on the way to California, I have to see to a few things there, I should be able to come back by January, at the latest."

"What if I need a parental figure?" Ciel asked, not meaning 'what if I need advice', but literally 'what if I need a parent for my cover'?

"I suppose you'll have to improvise," his Aunt laughed. "Try not to have any wild parties."

"I'll _try_."

**xox**

"So how do I become less 'boring'?" Ciel inquired to Sebastian.

It was the second week of December, there had been no new over dose victims, and absolutely zero talk of anything remotely illegal among the students. At least as far as he could gather, and as far as Sebastian had told him. What he really wanted was to hear what Joker had heard, but the red head (like Dagger and Beast) wasn't completely candid around Ciel, and frankly, he was getting tired of it.

In his last meeting with the principal she had expressed the opinion that maybe the whole drug problem had just "blown over" and that Ciel's inability to find any leads or evidence only proved that further, along with the fact that no new incidents had occurred.

Ciel had tried to convince her to be patient. All of the other problems had taken place after huge parties, and since he'd arrived there hadn't even been a gathering of more than ten people at a time. Also, he'd already been paid in advance for December, there was no reason not to let him at least wait it out. She had agreed, somewhat reluctantly. That was the problem with his clients a lot of the times, they hired him, said they put their faith in him, but as soon as they had even an inkling of a doubt it was always hard to persuade them, in the end they saw him as a kid, and no adult took advice from a kid.

Now, with no leads or clues, Ciel would instead work on making Sebastian's obnoxious group of friends like him, until a better option presented itself.

"I guess you could like, magic yourself a personality or something?" Sebastian snickered, only to start coughing on his own cigarette smoke.

Ciel got jostled every time Sebastian coughed, since the older boy insisted on keeping an arm around Ciel's waist at all times.

He thought briefly about telling the other teen that the black cigarettes Joker (and now Sebastian) smoked didn't bother him any more than regular cigarette smoke, that he'd just lied to make conversation at the time he'd said otherwise ... but even though he was having a coughing fit Sebastian still managed to grope Ciel's upper thigh ... so Ciel decided to let Sebastian choke on the stupid things.

"I'm being serious," Ciel said to Sebastian, pinching his hand hard, using his finger nails to dig into the skin.

"Shit," Sebastian withdrew his hand, rubbing at it and scowling. "I don't know dude, maybe be like a normal person or something, or do like, something cool like-" he squinted, as if in deep thought. Ciel wondered if he would hurt himself from that. "-like, can you juggle or some shit?"

"Juggle. Like a clown."

"Hey, Joker can juggle like four oranges at a time, I've seen him."

"You're useless," Ciel replied flatly.

"What? I'm being totally for serious Short Round, since you can't really like, fake like, street cred or whatever it is you're wanting, why not do a fucking like, cartwheel in the halls or some shit? Then everyone would be like 'Whoa! Did you see that kid do a fucking cartwheel like goddamn Jackie Chan!', 'Totally! We should invite Jackie to our secret drug ring!'-"

At this point, Ciel jabbed Sebastian hard in his side again. It was the same place he'd stabbed the other boy a week before (and several other times throughout the week as well). Sebastian could never seem to keep from irrevocably enraging Ciel for longer than an hour or two, so he probably had a nice bruise there (which meant it would only hurt that much more every time Ciel did it).

"Useless," Ciel muttered, as Sebastian tried to scoot speedily away, cursing and whining the whole time.

**xox**

There were several things you needed to do in order to effectively punch someone in the face.

One, know your distance (as in, the distance between you and the other person).

Be aware of how long your arm needs to extend without locking your elbow. Striking something rigidly (locking the elbow) puts pressure on the joint rather than the muscle, increasing the chances of doing damage to yourself.

Two, lean into your hit.

Not only does this put your body weight behind the punch (making it a more powerful blow), but also puts your opponent in _your_ center of gravity making it easier to maintain your balance (which is crucial in evading the very likely counter attack).

Three, close your fist on impact.

Having your fist closed through the entire blow clenches the muscles in your arm, thereby severely slowly down your punch (and making it less effective). Clench your fist right before connecting and you can maintain both your speed and force.

**xox**

It was after sixth period and Ciel was headed to the middle of the art building to meet Beast and Dagger. Right before the entry way there was something of a crowd, all whispers and murmurs of "maybe we should get a teacher" or "someone should break this up". At the center of this group was Doll and Maurice, the girl all tears and semi-hysterics and Maurice shouting and flinging insults at her (only making the semi-hysterics start to slowly graduate to full on hysterics).

Ciel stopped on the outside of the loose ring of students, regarding the scene with a frown, wondering why someone _didn't_ go get a teacher.

"You said that you loved me!"

"Yeah, well I lied you dumb bitch!"

When a louder roll of mutters from the gathered onlookers filled the space Maurice yelled for everyone to mind their own damn business, while Doll, oblivious to everyone but her once-boyfriend, continued pleading with him.

Ciel was just about to take the blonde's advice and walk away before things escalated, when he caught sight of Beast and Dagger a long ways off down the opposite hall, charging (as well as you could charge in a crowded building) towards their friend.

He was struck with an idea (an idea partially influenced by Sebastian's stupid joke about cartwheels), so instead of moving around the group he began to slowly inch through them, coming closer to the middle where Doll and Maurice were.

The (used to be) couple continued their shouting and crying all while Beast and Dagger got closer. Ciel could see their faces now, Beast looked like she could only see red, deep frown, gritted teeth, and seemed to not be fully conscious of nearly running into others, tunnel vision probably having kicked in. Dagger, a few feet behind the furious girl, kept trying to break into a jog to keep up, seeing as how he still had the presence of mind not to bump into others. His face was tensed with concern, concern that he was confusedly dividing between Doll and Beast (his eyes kept darting back and forth between the two girls).

"Please-!" Doll cried, grabbing at Maurice's shirt.

"Fuck off you stupid slut!" He shouted, his hand coming down fast on her cheek as he slapped her.

Beast was now actually shoving kids to get through, close enough where Ciel heard her yell "Bastard!", Maurice made to move away from Doll, bringing him no more than two steps away from Ciel.

The whole situation couldn't have been more perfect if Ciel had staged it himself.

Ciel's fist connected solidly with part of Maurice's cheek and part of his nose. Surprised at being sucker punched, he almost lost his balance as he cried out, holding his face. The hallway erupted with shouts of "fight! fight!" and finally a couple of people did skitter away to get a teacher. Blood was running down Maurice's face as he took his hands away and made one quick stride to strike back. Ciel had moved in too close (to make sure Beast and Dagger could see him clearly), so shifted to his right, getting ready to try to block the other boy or roll with the counter ...

... So was completely bewildered and almost taken off his feet when he was dealt a hard blow too his right ...

The asshole was fucking left handed.

**xox**

Ciel was laying down on the cot in the nurses station with an oversized ice pack covering his whole eye and part of his forehead.

After his humiliating mistake (really, if he'd been paying more attention to Maurice instead of Beast and Dagger he would have noticed him slapping Doll with his left hand) he would have probably got worse, except that a gaggle of the staff had arrived.

Rather than the teachers pulling Ciel and Maurice apart, they had ended up dragging _Beast_ and Maurice away, both swinging and cursing, though Maurice had been trying to get at _Ciel_ while Beast was trying to get at Maurice.

The blond was in another room in the nurses station (Ciel could hear him still yelling) as they tried to make sure his nose wasn't broken. When the principal had come by Ciel had to explain to her that he'd hit the other boy for a purpose (he wasn't getting paid to go around assaulting the students), and convince her not to expel Maurice (since Ciel couldn't really be expelled it would look odd if only one of them was punished). Starting tomorrow he'd have to report to ISS (in school suspension) for two days, and Maurice would have ISS for a week (because he'd hit Doll too).

Ciel hadn't got the chance to speak with Dagger or Beast (the former went immediately to check on Doll and the later got hauled away to the principal's office), and so was laying there, with what was more than likely an ugly black eye, and not knowing if getting it had been of any use.

Maurice's ranting became louder for a moment as the door was opened, then muffled as it was closed again. Ciel turned his head (the door was to his right, and that eye was covered) to see Sebastian sauntering in.

"'Sup Rocky?" he grinned, sitting on the edge of the cot.

"What do you want?" Ciel grumbled, sitting up.

"I brought you a sucker," Sebastian gestured, waving two suckers in front of Ciel's uncovered eye.

"You're going to tell me you went and got me candy ..."

"Not like, all romantic like that, the receptionist keeps them behind her desk and since everybody's running around all batshit I grabbed them on my way in."

Sebastian unwrapped one and put it in his mouth, taking Ciel's away and unwrapping it too after Ciel fumbled with it trying to open it with one hand (the other holding his ice pack on his face).

The two of them sat there for a minute, sucking in silence.

"So like," Sebastian began. "You have like a radical black eye now?"

"I don't know, hopefully not." He removed the melting ice pack and turned towards the older teen.

"Ah dude, it's gonna be totally nasty by tomorrow," Sebastian laughed.

"Wonderful," Ciel sighed.

"You could rock an eye patch."

"So you can call me pirate names from different movies? No thanks."

"Yeah, pirates are all metro now with guy-liner and shit, you'd look fruity as hell."

"Says my 'boyfriend'."

"Don't tell me how to live my life, I can still be gay or bi or whatever _and_ a hypocrite."

Ciel rolled his eyes, twirling the sucker over his tongue.

Sebastian leaned back against the wall and crossed his arms. "So like, why'd you deck him?"

Ciel paused to consider his answer. Up until now he'd been honest with Sebastian about his motives and objectives, but that had only led to the older boy resenting him more and more. Telling Sebastian that he'd hit another kid just to gain favor amongst his friends was the truth but ...

When in doubt ... _lie_.

"He pissed me off," Ciel mumbled, trying to conjure up believable dialect. "He slapped your friend, Doll, when she was upset and ... it just made me mad."

He wanted very much to turn and look at Sebastian, to read his facial movements, but thought that would give him away.

The other boy snorted. "I didn't think you could get mad, since you're a cyborg and shit."

"But you make me mad everyday," Ciel drawled, finally turning to look at Sebastian, who was grinning, and for once, not deviously.

"We could get counseling," Sebastian mused, faking seriousness. "I want to make this work, for like, the kids."

"Useless," Ciel sighed, shaking his head (and he told himself he allowed the small smile on his lips for the act).

"Well our marital problems aside, you're totally like, everyone's fucking hero now."

Ciel frowned. "Because I hit Maurice? I thought he was well liked?"

"Pft, yeah, until he like, slapped a girl, while she was fucking crying, I mean seriously, who does that? Everyone fucking hates him now."

"Is this a high school or a soap opera?"

"A total soap opera," Sebastian snickered. "A regular fucking _Twin Peaks._"

"Another movie?" Ciel asked, scooting back to lean against the wall with Sebastian.

"Nah, it's a show."

Ciel decided to stop resisting all of Sebastian's inane references. "What's it about?"

"Coffee. _Damn good_ coffee."

* * *

_a/n: delicious nachos next chapter_


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer: Kuro belongs to Yana Toboso!**

**warnings: AU, OOC, mature themes, generally lame**

**beta'd by Ar! thank you!**

* * *

**Chapter 3**

"This has to be one parts beef, cheese, and chips, and three parts just ... _grease_," Ciel grimaced, poking at his (delicious) nachos warily. "In fact, I'm unsure on whether or not this is really beef at all ..."

It was around seven thirty on Friday night. There was a game on the field that Sebastian didn't follow, the bleachers were hard and metal and more like something you'd use in a torture chamber than as a seat, it was cold as fucking shit, Ciel was a whiny little bitch, and Dagger wasn't even there yet ... but Sebastian didn't care, he had nachos.

"If you aren't gonna eat them give them here, pussy," he said between licking the last remainders of cheese off of his own fingers. His nachos had long since been devoured, and watching Ciel daintily trying to scoot the grease around was getting on his nerves. With no fight at all the other boy handed them over, watching with what looked like mild disgust as Sebastian ate.

There was a crowd wide groan from the bleachers they were seated at, while the away audience on the opposite side of the field erupted in cheers.

"Bad start," Ciel drawled, rubbing his arms.

"If you'd eat something warm you wouldn't be cold, _sweetie_," Sebastian grinned, tossing the now empty cardboard boat underneath his seat (what? Someone who was definitely not him got paid to clean that shit up).

"I'd rather be cold than have a heart attack at twenty-five, _darling_," Ciel sneered.

**xox**

Ciel's new found popularity had gotten a little out of hand in the last week. There were a lot of people who wanted to talk to him, ask him about himself, or just give him a pat on the back for his heroism (if you'd go that far). At first the younger teen had been pleased with this development, putting on his shit-eating smile and lying out his ass about anything and everything, and damn it all, it had worked for the most part. They didn't have anyone new coming to sit with them at lunch or anything, but kids were saying hi to Ciel in the halls, or chatting him up in classes.

The only problem with all this was, of course, Sebastian. The first thing out of everyone's mouth was always, "You're the kid who hit Maurice, right?" and the second was "You're dating Sebastian, right?" Sebastian, always close at hand, was only too happy to help, confirming that yes, they were deeply in love, yes, he'd totally seen Ciel's dick, and no, it wasn't as small as you'd think it'd be.

Various degrees of physical assault from Ciel to Sebastian ensue.

Now that all eyes were on them, people started noticing Ciel being less than thrilled at Sebastian's presence, and they wanted to know about that too (well, the girls did anyway), "Oh my God, what did Sebastian do?" and "You seem upset, did Sebastian say something mean to you?"

Come to think of it, why the hell was it always _his_ fault? As far as anyone could tell, _Sebastian_ was the caring, affectionate one, and _Ciel_ was the stoic, butch bitch who wouldn't _let love in _(ha! You see? Like, butt sex. Because they're both dudes. Oh shut up, you get it).

Anyway, who's fault it was aside (Ciel's, totally Ciel's), now that the majority of the student body was concerned with Ciel's private life he had to start meeting Sebastian half way in their charade, though if he'd have explained that to the older boy _beforehand_ it would've saved him from almost having a damn stroke.

"Hey," Ciel murmured, arms wrapping around Sebastian. He was standing in line to get lunch and Jesus Christ it was a good thing Ciel had done this before he got a tray because he would've dropped it in shock otherwise.

"... What-"

"Can you stop looking so slack jawed, you idiot, and play along?" the younger boy hissed at him, face pressed against Sebastian's chest and cheeks getting pinker with each second.

"Hi ... honey bunches," Sebastian cooed, returning the hug and moving to kiss Ciel's ear and whisper. "What the hell are you doing?"

"I'll explain when we're outside - stop licking me."

**xox**

_Baby, you still awake? Wanna sext with me?_ (Insert wink-y face)

_I knew giving you my phone number was a mistake._

**xox**

"I _told_ you that us 'dating' would complicate everything! Every single person I talk to thinks we're having a fight because I don't hang all over you!" Ciel had ranted, albeit under his breath, as they walked out of the cafeteria, Ciel's arm around Sebastian's middle and Sebastian's arm draped over Ciel's shoulder.

"It must be because if they were dating me _they'd_ be hanging all over me," Sebastian smirked, Ciel glaring at him. "What? I told you, sexy as hell, bitches want this."

"I didn't notice you beating anyone off with a stick when I got here."

"There was plenty of beating off - wait, no, there was plenty of-"

"Leave it, you've ruined it already," Ciel sighed, shaking his head. "Regardless, we're going to have to cooperate from now on."

"Sounds sexy."

"Cooperate to maintain _my cover_."

"Yeah, I'll maintain ... shit, you freaked me out so bad I can't even argue right."

"Small victory."

**xox**

"Hey, let me copy your homework."

"No. Do it yourself."

"Yeah like, do it in the next ten minutes before we turn it in? Whatever. Come ooooon."

Sebastian had homeroom and the first four classes of the day with Ciel. The little turd always did his homework and felt no obligation to share with other people who had a damn social life. Sebastian couldn't be bothered to do all his assignments when there was more important shit going down like: loitering outside super markets, laying around scratching himself, or (back in the good old days) making out with a girl.

Since he was only "dating" Ciel to maintain a more believable cover (that was like, a total lie, he just wanted to piss him off) he thought the least the douche bag could do was let him copy his goddamn history homework.

"Oh my God, come on, like, please? I haven't turned anything in in this class in like, a week or something," Sebastian whined, bumping his forehead against the other boy's back in an attempt to annoy him into giving in. Ciel sat in front of Sebastian in all the classes they shared together (his mistake) and one of Sebastian's favorite hobbies was poking, pulling hair, and (when he was feeling extra douche-y) tickling him on that spot on his neck.

Ciel huffed, turning around to face him, his voice lowered. "Listen, you can't copy mine. To keep my scores at average I have to go through and put believable mistakes through everything I turn in. If you copied me we'd have the same errors and we'd both get in trouble."

Sebastian frowned. "What? Like, why go through all that?"

"If I answer everything correctly I'd have higher grades and they'd want to move me into honor classes. Since the principal is convinced the "problem" is coming from people in _your_ GPA bracket I have to maintain a C or B average so that I can stay in these classes-"

"No, no, no," Sebastian waved away his long ass winded explanation. "I mean like, why don't you just not turn some shit in?"

Ciel tilted his head to the side. "How do you mean?"

"Like," Sebastian gesture vaguely. "Don't like do all that work and shit, just like, do some of your homework, answer it all right and stuff, then the rest of it just like, _don't _do. And then make like an A or B or whatever on the tests and that'll keep you at a nice C."

Ciel stared at him incredulously. "You have underachieving down to an _art_."

"Yuhp," he grinned, leaning over Ciel and snatching his paper. "So you can like, start that shit now, and I'll turn this in."

The younger boy tried to take the paper back as Sebastian was erasing "Ciel Phantomhive" (creepy ass last name right? Like a fucking bad guy from a shitty scary movie). "The teacher will know that's not your hand writing-"

"Pfft, whatever, I haven't done any homework in here in so long he probably doesn't even know what my hand writing fucking looks like."

"What's sad is how proud you sound of that."

"Dude I'm like a ghost, fucking turning shit in all sneaky like and passing their classes and they're like 'Sebastian who?' and I'm like 'Yeah, bitch'."

"Really. That's what you're like."

"Totally."

**xox**

Teaching Ciel how to be human (when deep down they both knew he was a robot, or Borg, or like, a Care Bear villain) was a lot harder than Sebastian had anticipated.

The majority of the difficulties were caused by two things: one, Ciel was apparently like, rich or some shit, and two, he was super hygienic (maybe not like all OCD, like carrying around hand sanitizer, but like bad enough where he made a face if he got dirt on him).

"Just pick like, one fucking jacket and fucking stick to it! It's fucking weird as shit that you come in here everyday with a different goddamned hoody on!"

"If just wear one I'll have to wash it every single day. That's too much trouble." Ciel protested.

"What the hell, don't fucking wash it everyday. You don't roll around in trash or some shit at school."

"... So you're telling me you don't wash your sweatshirt every day, you just ... you just wear it again? _Dirty_?"

Sebastian would've been more exasperated, but the crazy, over the top look of horror on Ciel's face made up for it.

**xox**

Sebastian, Joker and Dagger were all slouching around in various places in Claude's room (Sebastian's older brother). They had rented a movie from one of those one night move rental vending machines only to get home and realize they'd accidentally (Sebastian claimed it was the damn machine's mistake) got it in high definition. His brother had the only blu-ray player in the house (why the hell he had one when he didn't watch _half_ the movies Sebastian did ...), and since Claude had come home for a "break" from college he'd be out at all hours of the day and night, thinking about his life or whatever.

Sebastian suspected that Claude was wanting to switch majors or something after almost four years of school, and had come home to suck up to their parents before breaking the news. But (like the bitch that Claude was) after he'd come home he found any excuse to go out, probably wanting to stall as long as possible before asking their parents for another shit ton of money.

The movie was totally sucked anyway, high definition couldn't save it from bad acting or directing, so they were mostly just lazing around and talking.

"So like, how far have you and Ciel gone? Like just first base or ... wait. What's second base for two dudes?" Dagger asked, frowning. He was sitting on the floor, flipping through some old ass porn magazine he'd found under Claude's bed (and when he said old he meant _old_, like, back when breasts weren't all crazy round and filled with silicone and shit).

Joker, who was standing by the open window to blow his cigarette smoke out of, turned, brow furrowed in what looked like deep thought. "That's a damn good question. Like, second base on chicks is tits so ... what, do you just rub each other's chests?"

"Third base is still the same though, right?" Dagger added. "Like below the belt or whatever?"

"Yeah that'd still be the same," Joker nodded. Both boys turned to Sebastian, who was sitting in Claude's computer chair, spinning in a circle.

He arched an eyebrow as his two friends spun by. "So what? Are you asking me about like, how far we've gone or about like, gay baseball?"

"I would buy season fucking tickets for something called gay baseball." Dagger professed with such seriousness that Joker snorted and choked.

"Your love of homoerotic sporting events _aside_," Sebastian laughed, stopping his spinning. "We've just like, kissed. We aren't at lame dude second base or whatever." (What was funny is that was the truth)

"Really?" Joker smiled. "You must really like him, huh?"

"Please," Sebastian scoffed.

"Awh, he's embarrassed!" Dagger giggled (really, dude was fucking giggling).

"You've been dating for what? Like three or so weeks or some shit? And you've just kissed? Why else would you take it all slow unless you really _like_ him~" Joker sang, holding the "i" sound in like for a prolonged time.

"Oh, oh, I know!" Dagger interjected, standing up. "Ciel is like, all super innocent or something too, right? So you're being a fucking gentleman because you really _like_ him~"

"Oh my fucking God, did you two grow ovaries in like the last couple of minutes or what," Sebastian shook his head, but he was laughing too. "Besides, innocent is the last fucking thing that guy is."

Dagger and Joker stopped.

"What does that mean? When you said you've just kissed?" Joker gasped, mock scandalized. "He hasn't got to second base because they're playing a totally fucking different ball game ... with like whips and shit."

"Ooooh," Dagger answered. "And like, hot candle wax?"

"And nipple clamps."

"Fuzzy handcuffs."

"Nah, not fuzzy, they're too hardcore for that shit-"

"What the fuck are you assholes doing in here!" Claude yelled.

And like a bunch of kids getting caught messing with an older brother's stuff (well, not _like_ that, it was exactly that), they all tried to scramble out as Claude cursed and chased them.

**xox**

_Can I have five bucks?_ (Insert heart)

_No. What for?_

_Well I'm not gonna tell you if you aren't even gonna consider it._ (Insert sad face)

_I'll consider it, what's it for._

_Cigarettes._ (Insert smiley face)

_No._

(Insert crying face)

**xox**

It was lunch time and they were sitting out at the quad. Sebastian had forgotten his wallet so wasn't able to buy anything for lunch, instead stealing potato chips from Ciel, who he'd trapped again. He liked to make Ciel sit up on the brick half-wall with him, holding the younger boy's back against his chest. This position was "the best option" (imagine it in Ciel's voice, but nasally, and dumb) because it bothered Ciel to have Sebastian all over him, it made it hard for Ciel to jab Sebastian in the side (seriously, it was like a super dark bruise now, he was going to have like corrective surgery or something), and also made it really easy for Sebastian to breath, lick, kiss, or whatever all over Ciel's sweet spot under his ear.

"Why are your nails black?"

"I wanted them to match my soul," Sebastian replied in a melodramatic, gravely voice.

Ciel didn't say anything, just kept trying to hold his bag of chips out of Sebastian's grasp, which didn't work, like, at all, because Sebastian's arms were longer.

"I could be deep, have like, inner pain and shit," Sebastian said in his normal voice, breathing hot on Ciel's neck, which made the younger boy flinch and curl his arms in.

"You're making my chips taste like finger nail polish," Ciel grumbled, regarding his bag disappointingly.

"Then feed them to me," Sebastian suggested, opening his mouth expectantly.

"Get your own," Ciel replied irritably, retrieving a chip for himself. Before he was able to put it in his mouth Sebastian grabbed his arm and redirected it to himself, humming appreciatively as Ciel glared at him.

"Want me to lick the salt off your fingers?"

"Yeah, no, try to like, save that for after school, or at least when I'm not around," Joker chuckled. Sebastian had been so caught up in fighting Ciel for his food he hadn't noticed his friend walk up.

"You sound jealous, want me to lick you instead?" Sebastian taunted, letting go of Ciel's arm. The younger boy took the opportunity to shove as many potato chips in his mouth as he could.

"Don't tease me," Joker winked. He tilted his head towards Sebastian, questioningly. "What's up with your nails?"

"Doll painted them the other day when we had a sub in horticulture."

Sebastian could have sworn he heard Ciel mumbling something to the effect of "so you'll give _him_ a straight answer."

"Awh yeah? She's got classes with you now?"

"Mmhm, since like, all that shit that went down, they let her switch up some of her classes so she wouldn't have to run into Maurice and shit."

"I'd be more worried about _Ciel_ running into Maurice, with his fucking fist," Joker laughed.

"I know right? Who'd have thought this sweet little piece of tail was really a fucking super macho man, defending the fairer sex and shit?" Sebastian cooed, squeezing Ciel in a hug and kissing him on the ear. Unable to hit Sebastian while Joker was there, he just took it disgruntledly.

"Stop making fun of me," Ciel mumbled, raising his shoulders to keep Sebastian away from his neck.

"Dude, _dude_, we are so totally not making fun of you, I wanna give you a fucking metal or some shit," Joker nodded.

"For real bro," Sebastian added. Loosening his death (love) grip so Ciel could turn around and do his whole human lie detector shit. "We just wish we'd have been there so _we_ could've punched Maurice in his girly ass face."

"You guys don't even know the half of it," Dagger chimed in, him and Beast both arriving from the lunch line. "I swear to Christ that Ciel's arm made like a "chk-chk" sound, like pumping a fucking shotgun, before he floored that loser."

"I didn't though, he just stumbled back," Ciel muttered, though Sebastian was pretty sure no one else heard him. Was the little turd being modest? Come to think of it, this was the first time since he'd arrived that he'd been the center of attention like this. Sebastian couldn't read people's nose twitches and shit like Ciel claimed to be able to do, but the younger boy _did_ lean back on Sebastian more when everyone was talking about him, which was super odd because usually when Sebastian was all over him like this Ciel's whole body would be strained, like he was poised to bolt as soon as Sebastian let his guard down.

_But_, the modesty could be part of his whole act thing too ... but hitting Maurice hadn't been ... but then who's to say Ciel wouldn't try to use the whole situation to his advantage?

Sebastian tired himself out trying to figure out all of the younger teen's stupid _plots_. He knew people he couldn't trust and he knew people he could trust, having someone around all the time that was constantly half way between the two wore him the hell out.

"Well if Ciel hadn't done it, I sure as hell would've," Beast growled, leaning against the garden. Sadly, it was too cold now for even her to keep wearing her short sleeve button up, and her impressive breasts were now covered by a winter coat.

"Didn't you get like, grounded for even trying?" Sebastian snickered.

"Yes! I mean, what the hell! Since when did _wanting_ to fuck someone up and _actually_ fucking someone up get the same damn punishment?" Beast griped, shaking her head.

"Awh, so you aren't going to the game tonight?" Dagger pouted.

"What game?" Ciel asked, handing Sebastian his bag of chips. Which was really exciting till he found that it was empty. What did he look like? A fucking trash can? He crumpled the bag up and stuck it in the hood of Ciel's jacket.

"Last like, football game of the season, or, it's not really part of the season is it?" Joker frowned, looking to each person.

"Nah, it's like, just a 'rival' game or whatever," Dagger shrugged, but quickly brightened. "But if our school wins there'll probably be like a party or some shit afterwords."

"A party?" Ciel perked up like a dog who heard one of those whistles. You know, like that only dogs could hear. Or maybe he was like a drug dog, who heard someone say "cocaine". _Or_ maybe Sebastian had just been watching him _way too_ long _way too_ closely.

Joker scoffed. "You party, Ciel?"

"Yeah, for seriously, no offense, but you kinda look like an X's on the hands kinda guy," Dagger laughed.

Sebastian couldn't tell you what you'd had for breakfast by like, how fucking red your cheeks were, but he could totally tell that Ciel was pausing longer than usual before answering. So like a good boyfriend/body guard/henchmen, he helped his evil master out. "Pfft, whatever, you're like, eight different shades off of straight edge, right baby?"

"Y-Yeah," Ciel hissed, trying to push Sebastian's face away. Sebastian had given him a nice, long, _damp_ kiss on the little sexy spot on his neck. If he was going to have to save the other boy from sticking his foot in his mouth Sebastian was going to at least bother the piss out of him in the process.

"Well are you guys going then?" Dagger asked hopefully to Joker, Ciel, and Sebastian.

"Can't," Joker grunted, examining the last cigarette in his box worriedly. "My curfew is still like, fucking six o'clock from the quarters."

"Shit, seriously? How low were your grades?" Beast asked. Out of the four of them she got in trouble the least (almost beating the shit out of Maurice not withstanding) so was always surprised at the levels their parents went to punish them. She was also the only one of them that had a car, had a constant B average, and just all around didn't suck so bad at being a person (again, excluding the whole Maurice thing, and all the times she hit _them_ ... seriously, why didn't she get in trouble more? Totally not fair).

"Super low," Joker grinned. "But I should be free when the semester cards come out. I've been busting my ass doing some extra credit bullshit in Science-"

"Whoah, really?" Dagger laughed.

"Yeah, you see that dumb ass little balloon thing about temperature affecting gases? That was totally me."

"No wonder it looked so shitty." Sebastian snickered.

"Yeah, yeah, go fuck yourself. I don't wanna look at a fucking balloon, chart, or goddamn anything again for a year. Did you know the thermometer my dad gave me was totally broken? And I didn't know so I had to do the _whole_ fucking thing twice."

"Bummer," Beast smiled sympathetically.

"Sucks," Dagger agreed, but his sympathy was more short lived as he turned to Sebastian and Ciel. "So are you two going to the game?"

"Hell yeah, I don't miss fucking football games for shit man," Sebastian replied enthusiastically before Ciel could answer.

"Sweet," Dagger grinned. "So we'll all just meet there then? It starts at like, seven or something?"

"Sure thing."

The bell rang and they all started heading back in, for once a little thankful since it was so cold. Ciel tugged on Sebastian's hand, making him slow down so his friends were ahead of them and couldn't hear them. "Will there really be a party after the game? Like the ones where the other kids OD-ed?"

"Only if we win," Sebastian whispered back, releasing Ciel's hand and instead walking with an arm around his waist. His excuse was that he could talk more quietly and Ciel could still understand him ... but by you know that's a lie, pissing Ciel off was like the highlight of his day. "But I've been to these 'victory' things or whatever before and there's never been hard shit there the other times. In fact, it's usually at like one of the player's houses, like with their parents there and shit."

Ciel made a face at that, but didn't seem to register the whole arm around him thing. How lame would it be if he was getting used to this stuff? Would Sebastian have to take it further? Was he going to have to grope his junk? He'd grope him. You think he wouldn't. But he would.

"Why would any kid go to a party when the parents were home?"

"You're seriously underestimating how much bitches love football," Sebastian sighed. "The parents are the ones buying the beer at that shit."

"Facilitating underage drinking, wonderful," Ciel deadpanned. "Not that you have any room to talk, since you don't miss a football game 'for shit'?"

Sebastian snorted. "Like I fucking know anything about football."

"Then why do you go to the games?"

"Fucking nachos bro."

**xox**

"If you're cold we could snuggle, look up at the fucking stars and kiss and shit," Sebastian suggested, smirking and scooting up against Ciel on the bleachers.

"You are just _so_ romantic. Have you thought of writing poetry?" Ciel grumbled as Sebastian pulled him close.

"Poems? Maybe not a poem but, shit, let me think," he hummed, squinting in thought.

"Don't hurt yourself," Ciel muttered, the grumpiest person to ever get snuggled in the whole damn world.

" 'No, I don't think I will kiss you, although you need kissing, badly-' " Sebastian recited, trying for an accent but failing mostly.

"... Please tell me that you are _not_ quoting a movie word for word when you can barely pass a vocabulary quiz ..."

"I can remember important stuff," Sebastian shrugged. "Speaking of important, like, what are you gonna do if we _do_ go to a party? You have like a fucking magnifying glass and a bloodhound?"

Ciel glanced around, probably making sure no one was in ear shot. Seriously, did he think Sebastian was stupid? What the hell?

"More subtle than that. We'd just try to buy drugs like anyone else. I'm hoping it'll be that simple anyway."

"Probably won't be, since it's no one from school," Sebastian added, using his (chipped) black finger nails to pick at some dried cheese that was on the knee of Ciel's pants.

"We don't know that for sure yet," Ciel scolded, wiggling and trying to swat Sebastian's hand away. He had almost got the cheese off now though, so kept picking at it. "Stop!"

Sebastian paused. "... Are your knees ticklish?"

Ciel answered by glowering at him and covering both knee caps with his hands.

"You must've done something to like, piss God the hell off, since he gave someone as no-fun as you a bunch of fucking silly ass vulnerabilities."

And then Sebastian pulled Ciel even closer, trying to trap at least one of the younger teen's arms between them, and began tickling the shit out of him.

Seeing Ciel laughing and trying to give him a death glare at the same time was pretty much the best thing ever. He considered all the slaps and elbows aimed at his face worth it.

A quick flash of bright light blinded both of them for a second, freezing in the middle of their tickling/wrestling.

"Aren't you two the cutest shit ever?" Dagger laughed, cranking a camera in his hands.

"Fuck you," Sebastian growled, rubbing at his eyes to try to get the spots out of his vision. "What the hell is that archaic camera shit? You get that at an antique store?"

"Nah, it's one of those water proof disposable deals. I got it when we went to the river but we didn't use all the film up," Dagger said cheerily, taking a seat beside Sebastian. "My dad made me clean my room before I could leave and like, under some old clothes and shit there it was! So I thought I'd use it up real quick then get it developed."

"You guys went to a river? On purpose?" Ciel snorted, trying to fix his hair that had gotten messed up from wrestling with Sebastian.

"Mister washes-his-jacket-everyday doesn't like the outdoors, surprise surprise," Sebastian snickered.

"I don't mind the outdoors," Ciel countered irritably, cutting Dagger off before he could speak. "I'm just amazed that _you_ went anywhere with water deeper than two feet and didn't _drown_."

"I can swim just fucking fine you little tool box-"

"I thought that swimming required coordination, your brain and muscles working together? I don't think you have the mental capacity to chew gum and walk at the same time-"

"-Says the fruit loop that can't stay on his feet if you like, breath too hot on his neck, maybe you're all sexually frustrated from being a fucking elitist douche bag all the-"

"HEY, GUYS," Dagger interjected, raising his voice over Sebastian and (the asshole) Ciel. "Are you two like, fighting or some shit? Should I give you a minute?"

"No, we aren't," both replied through gritted teeth, Dagger regarding them dubiously.

**xox**

The game continued, each side getting goal points, or baskets, or whatever the fuck it was called in football. Dagger and Sebastian barely paid attention through the whole proceedings, taking pictures of people picking their noses when they thought no one was looking, while Ciel growled along with the home team every time something happened in the other teams favor (yeah this would be more like, accurate, if Sebastian knew like, _anything_ about football).

After about three hours (and over eight orders of nachos between them) they finally lost, the two opposing teams walking out on the field to shake hands in a line saying "good game" to one another, one all smiles and the other begrudgingly pretending to be sportsman like.

Sebastian watched Ciel's mood darken further (if that was possible, not that he'd ever seen the tool box in a _good_ mood up to this point).

**xox**

_My hand slowly trails down your stomach, stopping at your pants. I give slow kisses to your exposed hip bone as I assure you that I'll be gentle ..._

_I'm not just turning my phone off, I'm throwing it in a lake._

_I know what someone's getting for Xmas~!_ (Insert heart)

Your message could not be sent. Would you like to try again?

_Fine, see if I'll be gentle now!_

Your message could not be sent. Would you like to try again?

**xox**

"So you two wanna walk to the grocery store or something? Get some snacks and hang out?" Dagger offered as the three of them meandered towards the parking lot next to the field.

"Dude, you're _still_ hungry? I'm not ashamed to tell you that's like, super impressive." Sebastian was holding Ciel's hand, but loosely, neither of them particularly wanting the other's company. It was all fun and games and shit to annoy Ciel, but at the end of the day they really didn't like each other, and no amount of harassment schemes could make Sebastian want to hang out with his _master _after school too.

"My hobbies include: long walks on the beach, cuddling before sleep, and eating anything that's covered in salt and isn't nailed down," the blonde grinned.

"Open a personal add like that, bitches will be all over you."

"Ladies love a man with high cholesterol."

"If you two are _done_," Ciel sighed. "I'll give you a ride to the super market if you want."

Sebastian knew the younger boy was itching to get away from him as soon as possible, but his own personal discomfort didn't stop him from trying to act like a bro in front of Dagger (the conniving little bastard), but none of that was as important as-

"You have a _car_?" Sebastian asked disbelievingly. Ciel raised one eyebrow and gestured to the compact they'd stopped by.

"You didn't know he had one?" Dagger added, making a face. "Do you guys just like, not talk or what?"

Sebastian was still staring, open mouthed at the four wheeled machine of freedom that this fucking _prick_ had when he _didn't_. He would do so much shit with a car! He'd go through fucking drive-thus, fucking _drift race_, go places without freezing/sweating his balls off (depending on the season), and (applicable situation pending) do stupid, ridiculous _Dukes of Hazard_ ramp jumps every chance (applicable situation) he got!

"I just got it for my birthday," Ciel answered, giving Sebastian's look of pure (righteous) jealous rage a quizzical glance.

"Oh, so you're seventeen now! Why didn't you tell us it was your birthday? We'd have like, gone to get fucking pizza or something at least."

"It was on the fourteenth, besides-" Ciel paused, after holding the "sides" from "besides" a second or two too long, the syllable going an octave up from the "be". And maybe nobody else would've noticed that weird shit, but Sebastian was becoming an expert Ciel (robot) watcher, trying to decipher a personality under all his wires and fucking microchips (only to find the little personality the younger boy had to be fucking obnoxious, but oh well) ... so he totally picked up on the odd inflection. Tearing his gaze away from Ciel's car, he made eye contact with other teen, catching the brief, malicious joy that spread across his face for an instant, only to be replaced quickly with Ciel turning away, looking dejected and mumbling. "-Besides, I told Sebastian when it _was_ my birthday, I guess he forgot."

...

_This little piece of fucking bullshit, douche bag, jackass, mother fucking, son of a fucking-_

"What the hell Sebastian?" Dagger huffed, shoving his shoulder. "Boyfriend fail much?"

"It's fine-" Ciel mumbled, the stupid little pseudo martyr, oh my God the next time they were alone Sebastian was going to-

"Dude, come here," Dagger grunted, pulling Sebastian a foot or two away, then continuing in a whisper. "Jesus, no wonder you've been fucking fighting all the time, how do you suck up shit like that?"

"I guess I ... just ... fucking forgot," Sebastian ground out, fists clenched hard in his pockets. Great, now his friends were going to think he was a complete asshole, and of course he couldn't say "well this is the first I heard of it," because every damn thing Ciel said had to be fucking law to keep up their stupid cover or whatever. Okay, like totally for seriously, he might punch Ciel in his stupid face. It was like, looking like a strong possibility.

"Listen," Dagger continued, shaking his head disappointingly (Dagger was disappointed in him, because he thought Sebastian was an inconsiderate ass. Yeah, like right in Ciel's face, he would have worse than a fucking black eye, that was for sure). "I gotta go call my dad, tell him I'm staying out later, just, fucking apologize, you tool."

Dagger walked off, leaving Sebastian there, seething, with Ciel smugly leaning against the driver's side door. Wheeling around, and trying, _really super fucking hard_ to keep his expression neutral, Sebastian got right up in the younger boy's face (a threatening gesture, but to the other students walking through the parking lot it looked like something completely normal that a couple would do).

"I guess you think you're pretty fucking funny, huh?" Sebastian hissed, hands on Ciel's hips, appearing affectionate, but actually just preventing him from escaping.

Ciel just shrugged. "Seemed like something _you_ would appreciate, what with how you've mucked everything up with us _dating_." (Mucked. What, does his think he's fucking British? Fucking asshole.)

"Yeah? Well, we may be _dating_, but I don't go around trying to make you look like a dick to everyone."

"I thought that looking like a dick and dating you would be inclusive ..?" (Oh, hahahaha, fucking asshole, son of a bitch-)

Sebastian glanced up, seeing that Dagger was headed back towards them and that there was still a decent amount of people around. He was practically pressed against Ciel, the younger boy's hands were resting lightly on Sebastian's arms, both of them used to playing at being intimate.

"Well this is your fault, just remember that, douche," Sebastian chuckled, only giving Ciel a second to frown before he kissed him.

And yeah, there had been a lot of kissing, hugging, and hand holding (also some licking), between them over the past few weeks, most of it from Sebastian trying to make Ciel's knees give out (seriously, it was hilarious), but not since that day when a teacher had almost caught them going through his desk had they like, _really_ kissed. Like, lip to lip, mouths open, swapping spit, whatever the fuck you want to call it. Sebastian had kept everything as impersonal as he could (as impersonal as you could be while trying to lick someone's neck, but whatever), until right then in the parking lot, against Ciel's car.

He heard Ciel inhale sharply through his nose and his hands became talons clutching at Sebastian's arms, but fuck him, he started this. Sebastian wasn't stupid enough to try to put his tongue in the other boy's mouth, not when Ciel would sooner throw him off a cliff than give him a compliment, so instead sucked Ciel's bottom lip into his own mouth, where he could lick it in moderate safety.

Sebastian opened his eyes to make sure Dagger could see them "making up". The blonde had caught sight of the scene and (out of respect) had stopped to talk to someone else, giving Sebastian more time to piss Ciel right the fuck off. Sebastian ended the kiss, giving in and running his tongue along the top of Ciel's mouth quickly before any counter attack could be launched.

Ciel was red like ... like a fucking tomato red, like it was crazy how red his face was, and he was breathing heavy, little angry smokey clouds leaving his mouth in the cold air. Sebastian had thought the first time he'd seen Ciel panting after they kissed that it had been from running down the hallway, now he was considering that maybe the dumb ass just didn't know how to breath and make out at the same time.

"I'm going to ... knee you right in your damn balls," Ciel panted, all death glares and gritted teeth, trapped as he was by Sebastian's bigger body.

"Do that and you blow this whole fucking scene," Sebastian smirked, leaning down and kissing Ciel on the lips again, but this time real super slow and fucking romantic as shit.

"I really hate you," the younger boy spat between _adoring_ pecks from Sebastian.

"Hey, you wanted to pretend fight, so now we're pretend making up, because I'm _dedicated_ to our fucking cause."

"You're _dedicated_ to sexual harassment."

"Both," Sebastian grinned, rubbing his nose against Ciel's. As cold as it was and as hot as Ciel's face was Sebastian was surprised it wasn't emitting steam.

"You guys ready to go?" Dagger asked as he walked up, apparently out of ways to waste time. He looked back and forth between the two warily, seeming to be trying to figure out if they were still fighting or not.

Ciel, the master of deception and controlling his body language and all that bullshit, didn't look like he was able to drain the color from his face, so turned away from Dagger. "Yeah, let's go."

Sebastian was filled with (what turned out to be short lived) triumph as he called shotgun.

**xox**

"You know this is really fucking exhausting," Sebastian muttered as he eyed DVDs he couldn't afford in the electronics section. Dagger was filling out the little bag you put your camera in before dropping it off to be developed and Sebastian and Ciel were unhappily holding hands in the movie aisle.

"Not so exhausting that you can't french me in the middle of a parking lot," Ciel deadpanned.

"No one says 'french' anymore loser," Sebastian sighed.

He'd thought he'd taught Ciel a lesson by kissing him like that, but since they'd left the school grounds the younger boy had gotten icier and icier, causing Dagger to keep asking if they were arguing again, _already_. As much fun as it was to irritate Ciel, the brief joy of his anger was fast being diminished by how miserable the long awkward silences and endless insults were. Having to constantly be around someone who hated you and thought you were a moron was stressful as hell. The only conversations they had in private were about drugs and their classmates, and never normal conversations, always strategizing, and Ciel always talked to him in those times like he wasn't anything but a fucking screwdriver, a fucking tool instead of a person. And yeah, maybe Sebastian had stupid-ed the whole situation up by proclaiming that they were "dating", but Jesus, anything to keep Ciel from acting like the fucking Terminator all the time.

Ciel didn't say anything so Sebastian did. "Fine, sorry."

The other boy glanced at him, one eyebrow raised. "You're apologizing?"

"Listen," Sebastian started, in a lowered tone. There wasn't anyone around but whatever, he was Morocco Mole to Ciel's Secret Squirrel. "I don't fucking like you, like, at all, you're fucking irritating and boring as shit, but I _have_ to hang around you or my whole life gets fucked over, so can we just, I don't know, fucking stop this bullshit arguing?"

Ciel narrowed his eyes. "_You_ did this. I wouldn't hate you nearly as much if you'd keep your damn hands off me."

"Right, fine, _my bad_, but I wasn't fucking with you about messy break ups and shit. If we 'break up' my friends will not expect you to hang around us anymore, so like, how about this? I'll fucking hold your hand, like that's it, and you stop being a jackass, sound fair?"

"You have ... _licked_ me in some way everyday for the past two weeks ..."

"I know, I know, again, _my bad_, I fucking won't do shit anymore."

"And ... what? In exchange all I have to do is be nice to you?" Ciel scoffed.

"Well it couldn't hurt," Sebastian snorted. "But no, I mean, just act, like, fucking normal dude, and stop wearing different jackets and shoes everyday."

"I'm not going to live like a pig, like _you_," Ciel chided, rolling his eyes.

"You see? You're an asshole, but whatever, your clothes just make you look suspicious as hell, but no big deal, not like you're on some super James Bond secret mission or anything-"

"_Fine_." Ciel conceded. They stood, still holding hands, still staring unseeing at DVD cases for another moment, then Ciel added. "And you aren't a pig I suppose."

"Wow, that seems like it might've been a distant relative, twice removed, from an apology," Sebastian laughed.

"Shut up, I take it back."

"Nope, I caught you, trying to be nice to me, as fucking pathetic as the attempt was, but still."

As they continued their faux browsing the silence between them was just a tiny ass bit less awkward.

**xox**

_Home._

_K, thanks, night._

...

...

_Why did you want me to text you when I got home?_

_You're small and pretty for a boy, I wanted to make sure no one in a van rolled up and snatched you._

_You're an idiot._

_But I'm handsome so it kinda evens out._

_Whatever. Idiot._

(Insert heart)

...

_See you tomorrow._

_K._ (Insert smiley face)

_Night. _

* * *

_a/n: next time, sugar cookies_


	4. Chapter 4

**Disclaimer: Kuro belongs to Yana Toboso!**

**warnings: AU, OOC, mature themes, generally lame, Ciel being a fuddy duddy**

_no beta this time, so plz forgive any errors I missed~_

* * *

**Chapter 4**

Things had been slightly easier since Ciel and Sebastian had reached what you could call an uneasy alliance. Ciel hadn't felt the need to woo (if you will) Sebastian as he did with everyone else because frankly the big idiot had to help him whether he liked it or not. But that mindset had wasted a lot of time and energy (mostly with fighting between them) so Ciel was trying for a new angle.

The simple fact of the matter was that he couldn't do his job properly while trying to fend Sebastian's wandering hands (and tongue) off of him, so as long as he could keep Sebastian moderately happy he had his cooperation minus the enthusiastic rub downs.

**xox**

There were several different ways to tell if someone is lying.

The easiest, of course, involved body language.

If someone is lying they usually fidget or scratch at themselves; if you're talking to someone across a table they will often subconsciously place objects between themselves and you.

They will also have trouble maintaining correct posture and head placement, as in, they may hunch over slightly and tilt their face to the side, trying to gain sympathy with the submissive gesture.

Someone who isn't telling the truth will also usually avoid direct eye contact.

**xox**

Ciel's nose itched from all the smoke in the room.

Joker still had an early curfew so if they wanted to hang out past six they had to do it at his house (Beast was still grounded from her attempted assault of Maurice, so wasn't present at these little gatherings). Unfortunately, Joker also happened to have the only parent who smoked as well and allowed it inside. The living room had brown carpet and some dark shade of dark tan walls. With the color scheme, the smoke, and the perplexing presence of only one lamp, the space felt cramped and semi-claustrophobic. Doll and Joker were sitting on the floor, under the sad, lonely lamp, as Doll tried to help Joker study for a math test. Every time Ciel heard Joker say something to the affect of "I don't understand" or "One more time" he felt an almost physical pull to go over and assist them, so tried to focus on the movie Sebastian was making him watch. From the kitchen Dagger could be heard cursing at the microwave, which was apparently a finicky thing, either burning popcorn black or under cooking where only half the bag would pop, making Dagger try to put it in for just a bit longer, only to end up burning it anyway.

At the risk of sounding like a complete snob ... the whole place felt ... _poor_. Not poor as in, less than good, no, poor as in … _trashy_. As he wandered down that line of thinking he began taking Sebastian's accusations that he was an asshole to heart. Joker was a nice enough person, what did it matter if he was living in squalor? Okay, that might be a bit much ... but how expensive could a new microwave be?

Well there was no sense in worrying about that right now, his main objective on these horribly slow days with no new leads (which was starting to look like every day, making Ciel wonder if the principal wasn't right, and the whole issue had just blown over and resolved itself) was basically to butter up to Sebastian (and yes, Ciel was aware that people probably didn't say "butter up", going with "suck up" instead, but he didn't really want to use suck as a verb with the two nouns being him and Sebastian).

"If episodes one through three are out why are we watching episode four first?" Ciel asked. He and Sebastian were sitting on the couch, and, true to his word, Sebastian wasn't all over him, opting to drape his arm over the couch instead of Ciel's actual shoulders.

Sebastian gave him a stern look. "Fuck the new ones, we're only watching the good ones."

"Wouldn't the first three be the older movies?" Ciel frowned.

"Are you Amish? Did you not have like, internet or light bulbs before you moved here? Seriously, how the hell do you not know shit about _Star Wars_?"

"They came out before I was born," Ciel sighed, rolling his eyes.

"Yeah, well so did fucking _Romeo and Juliet_-"

"That's different, it's a classic play-"

"Are you saying _Star Wars_ isn't a classic-?"

"Well, I don't know how important it could be, it's about space ships or whatever-"

"_Space ships_. Oh my fucking God, _space ships_, that is like, the extent of your fucking knowledge about ... about fucking _Star Wars_! Is _space ships_!"

"Also bears." Ciel added, cutting Sebastian off from starting a lecture about how lacking Ciel's life had been.

The older boy tilted his head to the side, letting out half a laugh. "What? Fucking bears?"

"Yeah, there are bears in this movie right?" Ciel gestured to the TV while turning to face Sebastian better. Sebastian was shaking his head and taking a drag from his cigarette. "No, I _know_ there are bears. With little hats and spears."

He choked on his smoke, coughing and laughing at the same time. "Ewoks! They aren't fucking bears! It's Ewoks! Oh my God-!" He slouched down on the couch, resting his forehead on Ciel's shoulder, still laughing.

"They look like bears," Ciel grumbled, poking Sebastian in the side, but not as hard as he used to.

The rest of the evening Sebastian would randomly giggle, mumbling "fucking bears" to himself.

The stupid Ewoks didn't even show up till the third movie, or sixth, whatever. Stupid Ewoks, and Jedi, and "the force" and whole slew of useless trivia that Ciel now possessed.

**xox**

"Your car is like, weird clean."

"No it's not, the seat's wet and there's mud all over the passenger side-"

"Hey, I didn't _ask_ you to stop and pick me up-"

"Really, you looked like a dog that someone threw out and you were sitting there thinking about all the things you could have done wrong, 'Did I not go get the ball fast enough? Is it because I'm not a puppy anymore so they don't think I'm cute-?'"

"Alright asshole, enough sass mouth."

"_Sass mouth_. What were you saying a while back about sounding like a grandma?"

"All I remember is that you said my granny was _hip_, so she like, must skateboard and shop at the Gap."

"I didn't say anything about skateboarding."

"It was like, implied. _Anyway_, seriously, what the fuck is up with your car? It looks like it's from like a car rental place or some shit." Sebastian said, turning to look in the back seat, tsk-ing the whole time like keeping the inside of your vehicle clean was a _bad_ thing. Ciel had been driving to school in the pouring, _freezing_ rain when he'd seen Sebastian walking to the same destination, teeth chattering and soaked.

"It _is_ a rental." Ciel replied, shoving Sebastian back into his seat so he'd stop dripping on the places that were still dry.

The other teen whipped his head toward Ciel, glaring, and spraying the side of his face with water from his stupid bangs. "So that whole birthday thing was _total_ bullshit?"

Wiping his face with the (now frayed) sleeve of his jacket, Ciel tried to keep his tone from being confrontational (despite all the stupid, idiotic things Sebastian had done _just_ to irritate him, the older boy didn't seem able to handle his own medicine, so when he was in a particularly bad mood he'd bring up Ciel's birthday to try to start a fight). "No, the fourteenth of December really is my birthday, but I've had the car since the first day I was here. Dagger seemed to think it was pretty odd you didn't know I had a car so I just made the birthday gift bit up."

"Hmm," Sebastian hummed, dropping the subject in favor of digging through the glove compartment.

"Can you stop?" Ciel asked, irked, trying to squat at Sebastian and keep his eyes on the road at the same time. "You're getting my papers wet."

"Where are your CDs then?"

"I don't have any in here."

Sebastian snorted. "You have a fucking car and don't listen to music in it? You suck at being a teenager."

"You suck as a passenger, I don't care if an alien with dreadlocks is chasing you, I'm never giving you a ride again-"

"They're called _Predators_, and I don't think you could fucking save me from one of them-"

"Whatever. That movie was stupid."

"Your face is stupid."

"You should join the debate team."

"Your mom should-"

"Just stop."

**xox**

_What movie you wanna watch today?_ (Insert smiley face)

_I don't care as long as it's not science fiction._

_What's wrong with sci-fi?_ (Insert sad face)

_One movie about giant alien bugs is enough for a life time._

**xox**

Christmas break was going to last for two whole weeks. The last day of school was on the nineteenth and wouldn't reconvene till the second of January. The three days they had to show up were a joke, the teachers barely gave any work, a movie was playing in almost every class, and little parties with snacks were going on pretty much every period.

Ciel had been watching movies every single day after school with Sebastian (who apparently thought it was his duty to catch Ciel up in that subject, going from watching "classics" like _The Shawshank Redemption_, to the ridiculous like _Yo-Yo Girl Cop_. Yes. That's a real movie) and so was relieved when one of his teachers asked him to go make some copies, saving him from at least part of whatever animated Christmas themed monstrosity was playing.

Monday he and Principal Victoria had had a meeting to discuss the next course of action. The semester reports were going to come out Tuesday and since the original issue had started after quarterly reports they both agreed that if anything was going to occur it would be now. Ciel was going to work through the holiday, and technically work two days in January without being paid upfront, and if he had no news by the end of Christmas break was going to give up and leave. Though he didn't really _want_ to give up. No matter how many times he talked to her, the principal was just expecting results faster than were possible. He didn't know how to explain to her that he had to blindly try to make acquaintances, only hoping that the people he befriended would have any information he could use. It was the case of adults thinking kids could just "make friends" without trying. Something about becoming older made people forget how cruel and complicated high school was, to the point sometimes that Ciel wondered if adults had ever been teenagers at all, or if they'd simply come into being as stupid and old.

He ranted inwardly as he tried to make the ancient copy machine preform it's only function of existence, which was just asking too much of it. He unjammed paper that wasn't jammed to begin with over five times and was about to give up when someone else came in the printing room.

"Jammed?" The blonde asked, smiling.

"Yeah," Ciel nodded, giving the other kid a once over. He recognized him from the hallways, but didn't have any classes with him and had never spoken to him. He seemed cheerful and to have Sebastian's fashion sense except his clothes looked new (rather than Sebastian's which looked like they'd barely survived a war) and also minus the greasy hair.

The other boy reached behind the copier, unplugging it. "This thing is real stupid, sometimes when's it's all like 'no baby' you just gotta unhook it and wait for a minute."

And while Ciel had given the blond a cursory glance, just observation really, the other teen looked up and down Ciel in way that could only be described as "checking out", leaving him feeling exposed by the time eye contact was re-established. "I'm Alois, by the way."

"Ciel. We don't ... have any classes together?"

The way Alois was leaning against the copy machine, twirling the plug around, and watching Ciel's lips move when he talked was making him feel uncomfortable.

Ciel wasn't exactly an expert on this, he was home schooled when he wasn't working a job and the last assignment he'd had was when he was fourteen, right before everyone decided to go through puberty and complicate everything about his work. But even though he didn't grasp the subtleties of teenage romance he did know a whole lot about body language and ... he was pretty damn sure Alois was hitting on him just by standing there. One elbow on the copier, hips tilted at an angle that made his shirt ride up just enough to see the top of his boxers peeking out of his jeans ... the blonde's simple presence seemed provocative, but a purposeful kind of provocative, like Alois had come in the room, sized Ciel up, and was now making every minute movement _suggest_ something.

"No, we don't," Alois replied, smiling in a way that almost said "what a pity" out loud. Just the polite smile put Ciel on edge. It was the kind of way Sebastian would look at him before molesting him ... except Alois wasn't joking. "I heard you fucked up Maurice's pretty face."

"Uh, yeah." Did Ciel really just say "uh"? Taking a break from being around other kids during the whole puberty landslide was starting to seem like a mistake. In theory he knew how to react to sexual advances, but in practice ... his hands were starting to get clammy. If Alois made a move towards him he wondered if he'd be able to resist poking him hard in his kidney.

"How butch," Alois laughed. And dammit all, Ciel blushed. "What did he do, hit on your _boyfriend_?"

It felt like this is what Alois had been leading up to. The whole student body knew that Ciel and Sebastian were "dating", but the way the other teen was baiting him he knew that he was being given the chance to deny it. Or that Alois ... wanted him to deny it? This kid was most definitely hitting on him, right? He wasn't imagining this ... was he?

"My baby? Flying into a jealous rage? Sounds sexy."

The two turned as Sebastian entered the small office, thumbs hooked casually in his pockets, slouching (as always), but walking with a definite _swagger_ that was usually absent. Ciel felt his eyelid twitch in annoyance as Sebastian and Alois both starting sneering at one another. Two alpha dogs fighting over a bitch.

... And Ciel felt the atmosphere of the room shift extremely fast.

"'Sup Bass?" Alois grinned.

"Not much, _Jim_," Sebastian smiled back.

Ciel had never been to Antarctica, but he was reasonably sure that this is what it felt like.

"Baby~" Sebastian cooed, wrapping both arms around Ciel (totally violating their agreement) and pressing him gently into the wall. "You were gone so long I got worried."

Sebastian was evidently pretending that Alois wasn't there anymore. He'd backed Ciel into the wall, kissing at his neck, and moved his hands to Ciel's hips where he was rubbing soft circles with his thumbs. No amount of disdain or will power could keep heat from rushing to Ciel's cheeks, and it was only through prayer or faith in God that he was able to keep a nasty expression off his face.

"... I've been gone for less than ten minutes ..."

"Hmm," was Sebastian's only response as he gave Ciel a slow, wet kiss on the side of his mouth.

"Get a room," Alois scoffed, though Ciel didn't chance a look at him, too busy trying to hide his face in Sebastian's shirt.

"We've got one," Sebastian hummed, never turning away from Ciel. The sultry look of affection that Sebastian was wearing was so convincing it made Ciel a little uneasy. He'd witnessed (first hand) Sebastian pretending to be infatuated, but had never seen the older boy put it on this well. If Alois' perceived interest had made him blush he didn't even know what to call the shade of red his face was with Sebastian looking at him like this.

There was an audible "tsk" sound, presumably from Alois, and then the soft click of the door closing. Sebastian snorted, backing off and releasing Ciel, and made his way over to plug the copier back in.

"What ... the _hell_ was that about!" Ciel demanded, hand covering the place on his neck Sebastian had been kissing, trying to warm the skin up and get rid of the goose bumps that had broken out.

Sebastian pressed a button and the stupid machine started printing immediately. "Sorry, I fucking hate that guy." He said it offhandedly, watching the machine work, and not even bothering to sound more apologetic about the harassment.

Ciel jabbed him hard in the side to get his attention. "Don't use me to piss off someone you don't like."

Sebastian countered by giving Ciel a small shove. "And what do you think _he_ was doing? Giving you fucking bedroom eyes because you're cute? He's a fucking douche, he knows we're like, dating or whatever, he just wanted to piss _me_ off."

"If you two dislike each other so much how come this is the first time I've heard you mention it?"

"Because I'm not a fucking _girl_, I don't sit around and like, bitch about fucking junkies I don't like."

"Junkie?" Ciel asked, one eyebrow raised. "He does drugs?"

"I dunno if he _does_ them, I know he like, deals though."

Ciel's jaw dropped. He grabbed Sebastian by the arm, twisting him around to face him. "You know a goddamned _drug dealer_? And you're _just now_ telling me!"

**xox**

_Are there any cookies in the class you're in?_ (Insert heart)

_No Oreo's._

_Fucking shit, what the hell is wrong with everyone?_ (Insert angry face)

_We can get some after school._

_You're so sweet._ (Insert heart) _You just wanna spend like together, huh?_ (Insert another heart)

_I just want to watch the next racing movie._

_It's "Fast and Furious", it's not like some crazy interesting story line ..._

_I like cars._

_All girls do._

**xox**

Alois Trancy was what you would call a social butterfly. The kind of butterfly that always carried weed, X, and the odd prescription to sell to kids ... which was why everyone (excluding Sebastian) liked him.

He wasn't on the honor roll but had somehow managed to have a completely opposing schedule to Ciel. And because of Sebastian being an _absolute_ imbecile, this was the first time that Alois had even come up in conversation.

**xox**

"Why wouldn't you tell me about him! He is _exactly_ the kind of person I need to know and you just ... just don't mention it because you don't _like_ him!"

"You don't need to fucking know him, you need some kinda ... drug lord or some shit, not a fucking nickle man!"

"And do you know _how_ I meet a 'drug lord'! By making friends with their damn soldiers you ... _fucking_ idiot!"

"_You're_ a fucking idiot!"

"No, _you_ are!"

"You've got a stupid looking mom car!"

"I don't even know what that means!"

Both boys paused in their screaming at each other to catch their breath. They were sitting in Ciel's car outside the super market ... and it was the first time they had taken a break from shouting since school had been let out. Ciel felt like the month he had wasted on getting Sebastian and his friends to like him could have been much better spent on Alois, where as Sebastian felt that even being casually acquainted with the blonde was completely useless.

Ciel pinched the bridge of his nose, yelling so much had given him a headache. "Listen ... there's no use arguing about it-"

"You could've fucking fooled me with-"

"_So_, let's just drop it and proceed from here," he interrupted between gritted teeth. "Tell me about him."

"He's an asshole," Sebastian deadpanned. He had a black cigarette between his lips and was fidgeting, wanting to get out of the car so he could smoke it.

"Please, be more vague, it's so helpful."

"Jesus, he was like, always hanging around because his brother had a crush on me or some shit, okay?" Sebastian grumbled, rolling down the passenger side window before lighting his clove, the whole time eying Ciel suspiciously like he thought he was going to get slapped.

"So ... what? You got tired of seeing him so much and now you hate him? You know what, I'm not even sure how relevant any of that is, can you tell me something _useful_?"

"He's like, as queer as a three dollar bill."

"Alois _and_ his brother are both gay?" Ciel frowned, skeptical at the statistical odds of that.

"I don't know what the hell Luka is except that he's fucking batshit crazy," Sebastian muttered, then cursing when part of the cigarette's cherry fell on his lap at a particularly rough flick. The older boy started hitting his pants trying to put it out before it could burn through to his skin.

"Can you please try not to set yourself or my car on fire?" Ciel growled, leaning over and slapping at the little tobacco ember, trying to brush it into the floor board, only for Sebastian to yelp in pain, elbowing Ciel in the nose.

"Fuck! Fuck, ow!"

"What the hell!" The younger teen groaned, cupping his nose with his hands and fully expecting blood.

"Oh my God you hit me right in the dick!" Sebastian whined, doubled over and cigarette mysteriously missing.

Ciel realized he was holding his face with the same hand that had just inadvertently touched Sebastian's penis and so reacted on instinct ... and rubbed his palm on Sebastian's arm. "Eeeew ..."

"Are you seriously trying to give me my cooties back? Are you fucking five?" Sebastian asked, his voice still a little strained from getting slapped in his most intimate of areas.

Ciel ignored him in favor of flipping his visor down to check his nose in the mirror and wincing. "You are so lucky I'm not bleeding ... what's that smell?"

They both took a break from their respective whimperings as a little smoke cloud rose up from Sebastian's sweatshirt.

Anyone who happened to walk by the car was probably thoroughly confused as the occupants tried to put out the tiny fire ... Ciel smacking the older boy repeatedly as Sebastian was trying to wrestle the sweater off of himself before he got burnt.

**xox**

"Alright you band of miscreants, I am officially un-grounded, Christmas break starts at three fucking o'clock today, and there is a party filled with wine, women, or men for those who prefer, and song this Friday! So who is our DD!"

It wasn't lunch, it was actually second period, but it was Wednesday, the last day they had of school before the holiday, so practically everyone was skipping class. Sebastian's group was no exception, sitting in a corner of the gym chatting and eating the snacks they'd pilfered from their different classes, when Joker had bounded over to them and made his declaration.

"Well, if we go by order that would be ... you," Dagger grinned, pointing at the red head.

"Wha-?" Joker blinked, turning from one smirking face to the next. "No! No, no, no! I've had the lamest ass curfew since before Thanksgiving! Someone else do it!"

"You can't mess with the order, it'll throw our whole group dynamic out of whack," Beast snorted, her and Dagger obviously enjoying tormenting their friend.

Ciel was sitting between Sebastian's long legs, leaning back on the older boy's chest, and being fed sugar cookies. "What's a DD?" He mumbled, mouth part way full, as Sebastian dug through his little holiday snack bag looking for an Oreo.

"Designated driver."

Sebastian cursed and handed him another cookie, this one shaped like Santa and covered in red sugar. Ciel hummed in acknowledgment, taking the Santa cookie with his left hand, his right holding half of a Christmas tree shaped one.

"I don't think there's a single fucking Oreo in this whole damn bag."

"Wads wrung wid dese?" Ciel asked after trying to shove the rest of the tree in his mouth.

"... Dude are you high? Since when do you like, talk with your mouth full and shit?" Sebastian snorted, one eyebrow raised.

Ciel swallowed before answering, tilting his head back on Sebastian's shoulder to look up at him. "I've been eating nothing but candy and cookies for the past three days."

"So you're sugar high ..."

"No," Ciel scoffed, watching Joker plead with Beast and Dagger, who were just laughing harder and harder the more he begged.

"Whatever loser, good to know all it takes is like, four pounds of sugar to make you cuddle right ... or, you know, fucking chloroform."

"I'm not cuddling," Ciel said flatly. He was just using Sebastian as a cushion. It was either that or lean forward (bad for posture), or sit against the wall. It's not like it was a difficult decision.

"Mmhmm," Sebastian hummed, his face against Ciel's hair, lips dangerously close to brushing against an ear.

The younger boy twitched away defensively, glaring. "You promised you wouldn't do that anymore-"

"Ciel!" Joker exclaimed, eyes wide with hope.

"Wha-?"

"Ciel hasn't done DD yet, so he has to!" Joker laughed victoriously.

He frowned irritably. After the semester report cards had been released in homeroom the day before it had taken less than one full class for a party to be announced. It was taking place at a student named Edgar's house (several of the over dosing incidents had also started at this same boys house, though he'd been cleared of any involvement) and pretty much the entire student body was invited.

A couple of things were bothering Ciel about this turn of events.

One, Principal Victoria had vastly misinformed him about the so called separation between the honor roll and the rest of the students. It seemed the only thing that really kept them apart were class schedules and GPAs. More kids who weren't in advance placement got in trouble, but that was a statistical fact throughout _all_ high schools, not just this one. The only obvious connection between the honor roll and the drugs was that the parties usually took place at an honor roll student's house, but there wasn't anyone turned away from these gatherings either.

Sebastian, Joker, Dagger, Beast, and even Doll had been present at one or more of the parties at the beginning, though after _their_ grades became known to their parents they all got varying degrees of punishment. Sebastian and Dagger both had strict four p.m. curfews for a week, Joker's curfew was just now being lifted, Beast (who's grades weren't quite so low) had gotten a stern talking to, and Doll hadn't been allowed to see Maurice on the weekends (though that was kind of moot now).

The lack of exclusivity made Ciel less inclined to believe the drug use had any direct involvement with the advanced placement classes and more inclined towards coincidence. The honor roll _just happened_ to not be grounded like a large majority of other students, and at the parties that only kids who weren't being punished were attending there _just happened_ to be some sort of hard drug being passed around.

It was all simply a numbers game. Even though there weren't _just_ honor roll student there, there were _more_ of them than regular students, so the probability of only those students OD-ing was substantial. When considering all this, the principal's theory that one of the "regular" teens was targeting honor roll students seemed laughable. In all actuality it didn't sound like any kind of evil scheme at all, more like a bunch of stupid kids messing with drugs much too hard for them. And you know who could care less if the user can handle the product? A drug dealer.

Which brought Ciel to the second thing that was bothering him, Alois. From the very sparse information he'd managed to _drag_ out of Sebastian Ciel had started forming a plan to befriend Alois ... well ... not so much befriend as ... _manipulate_.

Luka, Alois' younger brother, had had a crush on Sebastian a while back. From what he'd gleaned from Beast and Doll (yes, he'd resorted to the slightly sexist mindset of girls being more willing to gossip) Luka had never been the most ... stable of people, and when Sebastian had spurred his advances it sent the younger boy into a very violent depression. Luka had been sent to an institute (apparently for his own safety) and Alois blamed Sebastian for that. More details would've been nice, but that was all he could get out of the two girls, and only after mortifying himself by ... embellishing his and Alois' encounter in the printing room and Sebastian's overreaction to finding them.

From the miniscule bit of knowledge he had though, he'd formed a plan. But this plan did _not_ involve baby sitting four drunken teenagers.

"Would it be alright if I didn't drive, just this once? I kind of wanted to celebrate a little, since I didn't really get to do anything for my birthday," Ciel trailed off. Since he was sitting against Sebastian he was able to feel the twitch the older boy made at Ciel's words. He had been wondering if Dagger had told the others about the night of the football game, but as three pairs of eyes went to Sebastian it was obvious he had.

Sebastian cleared his throat. "Yeah bro, he'll like, do it next time ..."

Joker's expression flickered between annoyance and compassion, evidently wanting to both get wasted _and_ do a favor for a friend who was dangerously close to a (fake) lover's spat.

Friendship won out in the end.

"Yeah, it's fine," Joker sighed. "We'll all like, actually fit in my dad's van anyway." A grin worked it's way on his face. "When we take Ciel's car I call dibs on sitting on Dagger's lap~"

"I hope you like getting poked in the ass by my erection." Dagger said with such a straight face Ciel didn't think it was a joke till Beast and Joker laughed.

"That's why I wanna sit on your lap instead of Sebastian's," Joker replied. "If I'm gonna have a dick rubbing on me I wanna at least like, feel it."

"Haha, go fuck yourself," Sebastian grumbled, pushing Ciel forward and standing up.

Beast was clutching her side and laughing. "Oh my God, if you assholes make me cry and fuck up my eyeliner-"

Dagger took that as an invitation to tickle her. "Oh no! Your make ups running! You look like a scary clown!"

"Asshole!"

The distant sound of the bell ringing, signaling third period, rang through the gym.

"I'm gonna go like, get some more food, hopefully a fucking Oreo, Jesus," Sebastian complained. "You guys'll still be here?"

"Yeah, if your class has some like, dip and shit will you grab some for me?" Joker asked.

Ciel had been paying close attention to his face since he'd pulled the birthday card again, making sure that the red head wasn't going to be mad about it, otherwise he might not have noticed the forced way that Joker was looking anywhere but at Beast and Dagger, mouth in a tight smile that didn't go up to his eyes. Ciel frowned, remembering Sebastian mentioning unresolved sexual tension between the three ... though that had been all he'd heard about it.

"You want fucking candy canes or like, brownies or some shit and I'll bring them, but I'm not gonna try to carry fucking cheese dip across campus loser."

"Just, I don't know, bring me something that isn't sweet, I'm fucking sick of candy."

"Alright," Sebastian nodded, then turned to Ciel with a nasty smirk. "Speaking of sweet, you coming with me, baby?"

Forcing himself not to grimace he got to his feet. "Sure."

Sebastian pulled Ciel unnecessarily close and instead of putting an arm around his shoulders or waist put his hand inside Ciel's back pocket, squeezing his butt. "I think I might need to like, cut you off though, or your ass will get big."

"I'll cut something off in a minute if you don't get your hands off me," Ciel whispered as they left.

Once through the door he shoved Sebastian away.

"Listen, I've been more than keeping up with my side of our agreement, but you can't seem to stop touching all over me-"

"Oh what the fuck ever dude, you were practically laying on me in there and then you like, get mad or whatever if I so much as breath on you, what are you? A fucking stripper? Where's the no touching sign? Your bouncer-?"

"I wasn't _laying_ on you! I was _leaning_ against you! And that was in front of people-"

"Yeah, well I grabbed your ass in front of people, so our secret-y secret cover or whatever is fine-"

"Why are you being such a jerk?" Ciel finally huffed, turning around and stopping Sebastian. They were off to the side of the quad and since most everyone was skipping their scheduled classes they were alone in the cold yard.

"Dude, boss me the fuck around all you want, but don't like, make my friends feel bad and shit," Sebastian said icily. "You know they actually think we're like, fighting or something? They'd all fucking stay sober Friday if they thought it'd keep us from breaking up or some shit."

"You must have dated some real winners if they're this desperate to keep _me_ around," Ciel replied dryly. He adopted a slightly amused expression, one eye brow raised, as he looked up at the older boy.

Sebastian finally snorted, shaking his head. "Yeah, you're a fucking _prize_, you little douche bag. Come on, let's find me the fucking holy grail of cookies or whatever."

Sebastian took Ciel's hand, instead of his butt, as they headed into the Literature building.

At the time Ciel didn't notice that there was no one around to see them holding hands.

**xox**

The direction a person looks while answering you can also tell you if they're lying or not.

When someone is remembering something, as in, recalling events that actually happened, they will look to their left (your right, if you're facing them) as they picture what happened.

Where as if someone is fabricating something they will look to their right, as they "make up" a picture of what happened.

This applies to people who are right handed and it would be the opposite for someone left handed.

**xox**

_Do you have "Pitch Black"?_

_Yeah, why?_

_I want to watch it. That guy from the racing movies is in it._

_Omg, "The Fast and the Furious", not racing movie, and it's Vin Diesel, and you said you didn't wanna watch anything sci-fi._

_So he doesn't drive in it?_

_Maybe a spaceship, I don't remember._

_How come you can quote lines word for word but can't remember anything about Vin Diesel?_

_Because it's fucking Vin Diesel, not like someone with Oscars, Jesus._ (Insert angry face)

_How many Oscars did the guy who played Luke in "Star Wars" get?_

...

_Mark Hamill and go to hell. _

**xox**

"This is a fucking dumb ass idea."

It was Thursday, the day before the Christmas break/report card celebration at Edgar's house, and Ciel and Sebastian were at the mall. If you'd call it a mall. Ciel would more call it a very small collection of stores that shared a big hallway ... and also had two food stands. Well, technically that was all a mall was, wasn't it? It was still ridiculously small in comparison to what he was used to though. While he was trying to wrap his head around what a destitute place this town was, he was also reassuring Sebastian about his plans for Friday, though he wasn't very invested in how reassured the other boy was, so his only reply to his concerns was:

"No it isn't."

And then he'd continue digging through shirts, looking for something tight, but not small. He wanted it to be form fitting without riding up if he had to lift his arms or bend over-

He paused mid-thought, thankful that Sebastian couldn't hear that last sentence. The older teen thrived on innuendo like a plant in sunshine.

"You're right, it's a fucking _super_ dumb ass idea," Sebastian growled from the other side of display, not even bothering to pretend like he was helping Ciel look for clothes.

"If you'd have introduced me to Alois earlier on I wouldn't have to go to such ... unfortunate measures," Ciel hummed, holding a shirt up for Sebastian's approval.

The other boy glanced irritably at the garment, then went back to glaring at Ciel. "Do you even listen to that band?"

"It's a band?" Ciel asked, turning the shirt around and frowning at the neon color splash.

"_Yes_ it's a fucking band," Sebastian answered, still glaring and providing no help.

"Oh look, this one has Darth Vader on it." Ciel held it up. "You like Darth Vader."

"Oh my God I do _not_ like Darth Vader, were you even listening to me when we were watching the movies?"

"No, since I was _watching the movies_."

"Darth Vader is a big bag of dicks."

"Yeah, I kind of got that with the whole dark side thing."

Sebastian threw his hands up in apparent exasperation. "Fuck Darth Vader for a second-!"

"I don't want to. Even if it is just for a second-"

"Oh my God shut up! Stop ignoring me! This is a stupid, lame ass idea, that sucks so much balls and isn't going to work and-"

"And it's the best available option at this point." Ciel said sternly, trying to convey with his disapproving stare and scolding tone that this was all Sebastian's own doing. "Besides, you aren't here for tactical input. You're here to do what I tell you to do."

Ciel caught the tiny flinch, even if Sebastian tried to play it off by running his hand through his hair. "Just when I thought you were gonna be like, less of a douche," he muttered, turning and leaving the store.

Sighing, Ciel grabbed the closest shirt in a medium size he could find and headed for the register. It was a lot more difficult than he thought it would be trying to appease Sebastian and get his job done at the same time. Pretending to be his friend (while pretending to everyone else they were dating ... this was so much more complicated than it should be ...) conflicted harshly with giving orders or directions, because friends didn't boss other friends around. He wondered if coming into the situation without any assistance would have been better ... wearing different persona's was easy, when they were all fake, but with Sebastian knowing Ciel's true intentions it had the older boy constantly second guessing and dubious of all of Ciel's motives.

Surprisingly, Sebastian was waiting for him outside the store. Ciel walked over to him, chin down, eyes glancing up, arms clasped behind his back, the gestures of someone who was apologetic (though he wasn't).

"Find a shirt?" Sebastian asked grouchily. Speaking of body language giving yourself away ... he was leaning against the wall, hands in his pockets, slouching (always), and scowling from behind his bangs. Well, trying to scowl, it was so obviously a pout it was kind of ridiculous. Not ridiculous that he would try to hide that he was pouting, but ridiculous that he was an eighteen year old boy (man, if you want to be technical) _pouting_ in the first place.

Ciel took a step closer, as close as they usually stood at school, when Sebastian's friends were watching. "I don't know why you're so worried," Ciel said softly (he may be laying it on a bit thick). "You know I've done this before."

"You've seduced homicidal, gay, teenage drug dealers before?" Sebastian snorted, trying to keep frowning.

But when Sebastian almost laughed Ciel almost did too, till the tension broke and Ciel shook his head, shoving Sebastian away from the wall. "He's not homicidal."

"Yeah like, maybe not to you," Sebastian chuckled, taking Ciel's hand. This time he did notice, but reasoned that they could run into their classmates at the mall.

"You're exaggerating. Are we watching a movie later?" Ciel asked. Maybe not the most subtle change of subjects, but definitely the one most likely to work.

"Yeah, let's watch fucking _Mulholland Drive_, show you like, what you're getting in to ..."

"I don't think you've mentioned that one. Does it have homicidal, gay, teenage drug dealers in it?"

"I so totally did mention it because we were talking about _Twin Peaks_ and mother fucking David Lynch made that show and he like, directed _Mulholland Drive_ and-"

"And you expect me to remember all of that-"

"_Mother fucking_. _David Lynch_."

"So I guess anything with 'mother fucking' before it should be highlighted since it'll be on the test?" Ciel rolled his eyes. He was oddly entertained by provoking Sebastian into cinema tirades.

"Yeah, laugh now pretty boy," Sebastian responded, using their interlocked hands to pull Ciel closer to sneer at him in a mockingly threatening manner. "I'm gonna pick out only the most like, obnoxious artsy movies I can find, then fucking pretend like I understand them but won't tell you what they're about."

"Inquisitors have nothing on you," Ciel smiled, rolling his eyes once again for good measure.

"I know right?"

**xox**

No matter the amount of mental (and wardrobe) preparing Ciel went through nothing could have made him feel ready for this ... "party". Though he was using the term party here very loosely. When Ciel thought of a party (as in regards to teenagers with alcohol) he imagined everyone sitting around in their usual school hours cliques, except with beverages and in someone's house. He knew his expectations were a bit outdated, but he'd had no idea _how_ outdated they were.

The main thing was the music. It was just so ... _damn loud_. It was some sort of mixed play list from Satan's mp3 player consisting of rap, pop, and only the screamiest-makes-no-sense rock. If a song wasn't about having sex while drinking a specific brand of rum only after "tearin' up the dance flo", it was about an odd combination of sticking it to the man, fucking the police, and (the most odd of all) inner pain and melancholy that the singer's parents had no chance of understanding or comforting.

Ciel's annoyance at the musical selection made him finally except that maybe he was secretly someone's grandma after all, because the only thing that kept replaying in his mind was, "I guess an old fuddy duddy like me just doesn't understand young people's music." Though he couldn't say it out loud, because he at least had the presence of mind to inherently know that no one said "fuddy duddy" ... except people's grandmas ... dammit.

"If it's too loud, you're too old," Sebastian laughed. Ciel, Sebastian, Joker, Dagger, and Beast were standing in the kitchen, which was semi-insulated from the den, so at least they didn't have to shout at each other. Sebastian took a sip from his cup, holding up one finger on his other hand. "_Airheads_."

"I thought Ozzy said that?" Dagger frowned as he was inspecting the different bottles lined up on the counter. It was set up with all sorts of different liquors if someone was inclined/knew how to mix drinks. The sheer amounts were a bit staggering to Ciel. If the whole drug situation didn't turn out he thought it would definitely be worth looking into how the hell minors got a hold of this much alcohol.

"I think it's just like, a saying, I don't think anyone said it," Beast drawled, nursing a beer. Dagger was the only one interested in making actual drinks, where as Sebastian and Beast seemed to be content with the closest non-virgin beverage at hand.

"Well whatever, it was in _Airheads_ too." Sebastian looked disgruntled. He didn't know as much about music as movies.

"There's a sequel?" Joker snickered. He'd gotten over whatever ill will he'd had about staying sober to drive everyone home, instead poking fun at Beast and Sebastian's increasingly drunken behavior.

"Too, T-O-O, _as well_." Everyone laughed at that. The oddest juxtaposition Ciel had seen. A bunch of rebellious teenagers drinking and partying ... and then they all laugh at a grammar joke.

Ciel was holding a red plastic cup filled with soda that he sipped at occasionally. Though Sebastian had told the others it was rum and coke, since Ciel had made a big deal out of not being the designated driver. As far as Sebastian and Ciel working together went, tonight was going better than usual. It probably had a lot to do with the fact that Sebastian didn't have to do much except back Ciel's play, otherwise freeing the older boy up to hang out with his friends and drink.

They'd arrived early, well, not early, but earlier than Alois had, leaving Ciel antsy and having to pretend to be drinking. Sebastian's only job of the night (besides going along with whatever Ciel said) he'd done right at the beginning, wondering aloud if anyone would be selling anything tonight. The reply from their group was that Alois would be, if no one else was, making Sebastian grimace (that was probably a genuine grimace though, not part of the act).

"What do you mean 'no one else'? Are there other students that sell drugs in their spare time?" Ciel snorted (as un-spuspiciously as possible).

"Well you know," Beast started. "When shit like this goes down the college assholes wanna come too."

"Assholes?"

"Beast calls all dudes assholes," Dagger chimed in. "She's sexiest."

"Whatever asshole."

"You see?"

"That has like, nothing to do with your gender, you're a fucking asshole!"

"Children! Children!" Joker said over them. "I will turn this car around!"

"That would've worked better when we were all like, still in the van." Sebastian's laughter shook Ciel, who was leaning against his chest again, one of Sebastian's arms around his waist. Ciel tried to reign in his annoyance at the direction the conversation had gone. He couldn't bring it up again without seeming too interested, but it was more difficult than he'd ever thought it could be to keep these four on track.

He turned his head towards Sebastian, tugging his face down so he could whisper in his ear. "What _did_ she mean?"

Sebastian hummed before turning to whisper back, though Ciel almost didn't catch what he said since the older boy purposely (or was it?) breathed hot on Ciel's neck first, making a small shiver run down his back. "She means like, other dudes like carrying shit, but they don't go to our school or whatever. A lot of them are dealers from the college in the next town over."

Ciel put a hand over his neck (making Sebastian snicker) before continuing. "What are they carrying?"

"Same shit, some of them have like, acid, if you're into that kinda thing."

"I'm guessing you aren't?"

"Too rich for my blood," Sebastian grinned, hugging him and nuzzling Ciel's hair.

"... Are you drunk?"

"Noooooo." But he choked on a little giggle and kissed Ciel on the top of his head.

Ciel shook his head, not too surprised at how early in the night Sebastian had rendered himself at least partially useless.

After the initial making of drinks and chatting they began to mingle out through the rest of the house (Joker more so than the rest of them). The house itself was big (if Ciel had been feeling rude he would have called it a McMansion), sitting up on a high hill above town in a small neighborhood of similarly large homes. It had taken about fifteen minutes to get there from Joker's house, where they had all met, but that was mostly from the snaky roads that traveled up the hill and through the rest of the neighborhood. The back yard was on the edge of the same hill, the only thing not covered by forest on the bluff was the twisting road. Every available surface in Edgar's home was covered by teenagers, nine out of ten of them from school. Ciel tried to keep track of the kids who weren't a part of the student body, but with everyone moving around (with sporadic cases of groups of people dancing) it proved to be impossible unless he were to sit on top of them ... and he had his hands full enough sitting on Sebastian.

After a couple of drinks Sebastian (if you can believe it) became even more talkative. And since Beast, Dagger, and Joker had disappeared into the throng the only person Sebastian seemed interested in talking to was Ciel.

"I just don't like, get it ya know?" Sebastian complained, his words only a little bit slurred. They had managed to get a single seat on a couch in one of the smaller living areas, leaving Ciel half sitting on the armrest and half on Sebastian. The dining room (minus the tables and chairs) was the largest room and so had the stereo in it. There was the entrance way and two larger living rooms in between the room they were in and the dining room, so they only had to shout a little to carry on a conversation. Not that this was a conversation, more of a therapy session, minus the therapy. "Like, they had a good like, premise and like-" (that was another drunk Sebastian thing apparently, very copious over use of "like") "-good writers and like a good director and like the show was so fucking bad still it was like, so stupid, ya know?"

Ciel nodded politely at this, slowly taking the new drink from Sebastian's hand and setting it on the side table far enough away where the older boy would have to get up to get it.

"And ya know what else? Like, it was all the fucking actors, ya know? Like, if the director would've just like, _made_ them act good ... awh ... maybe it _was_ the director's fault ... because I've like, seen those actors in other fucking stuff, right? And like, it wasn't bad at all! So the director was just like, a chicken shit and didn't like, _make_ them act right, don'tcha think?"

He was torn between finding Sebastian's ranting hilarious or pitiful. On the one hand, it was pretty funny listening to him talk in circles, on the other, he actually looked upset about it, eyebrows scrunched together and looking for all the world like he needed to be comforted. Ciel chewed on his bottom lip, stifling his laughter, and instead pet Sebastian soothingly on the top of his head. "Maybe they'll make it again? And do it better this time?"

"No they won't," Sebastian whined, hugging Ciel around his hips and burying his face into his chest. "They already like, fucked it up and didn't make any like, money or anything and they'll never try and fix it ..."

Some people got drunk and wailed endlessly about the meaninglessness of their existence and how they would never find true love ... Sebastian lamented the failing of a television show that he'd wanted to do well.

All the mockery that he had bottled up was starting to get to Ciel, his frame shaking with the semi-contained mirth, when he spotted Alois on the staircase in the entry way. Someone had stopped the blonde as he'd been heading upstairs and they talked for all of thirty seconds before money and products were exchanged. That's what _appeared_ to be happening anyway. Ciel wasn't in the habit of taking people's word for things, but Alois handed something over to the other kid as something was handed to him, and it was done in such a smooth manner it couldn't be anything savory. Alois waved goodbye to the other teen and headed up the stairs, prompting Ciel to get up from the couch.

"Where are you going?" Sebastian whined, holding out his arms for Ciel to come back.

Ciel bent down close to the older boy's ear in case the other kids around them were less drunk or occupied than they were letting on. "I just saw Alois go to the second floor, I'm going to go talk to him now."

"Alright, I'm coming too." Ciel had to stand up quickly when Sebastian started leaving little kisses on his cheek.

"No, he's not going to talk to me if you're there," Ciel scowled, wiping at his (now pink) face.

"But I wanna like, hang out with you," Sebastian pouted as he staggered to his feet.

"What? Don't be stupid, go find your friends."

"We're friends," Sebastian said.

Ciel was taken aback for a moment, scrutinizing Sebastian's unfocused eyes and the way he was swaying a bit while standing. Did he mean that? Had Ciel won him over finally where Sebastian wasn't going to constantly second guess all his motives? Or was the older teen drunk and just saying whatever?

"Yeah, well ... still, I need to talk with Alois and he's going to be defensive if you're there."

"What so like, you'd rather hang out with that like, fucking loser than me?" Sebastian demanded.

Ciel stared, frowning. Did this idiot have selective memory loss? Was he really this wasted already? Well, it made sense, teenagers shouldn't have high alcohol tolerance. If they did ... someone needed to talk with their parents. Regardless, Ciel couldn't very well explain to Sebastian what he was doing and why all over again _here_. As it was a few people were staring because of the older boy's raised voice. God, why couldn't they all just be drunk or mind their own damn business?

He decided to be mean and just hope that Sebastian would forget or understand why after he was sober. "Yeah, I'd rather hang out with someone who wasn't stupid and drunk. Though you're stupid when you aren't drunk too. So ... fuck off and leave me alone."

Ciel's stern demeanor faltered for a second at the hurt look on Sebastian's face. The other boy opened his mouth once, like he was going to say something, then his facial expression changed quickly to a nasty glare. "Fine, like, fuck you too, fuckin' douche bag." And he turned and stumbled in the opposite direction.

The whole scene reminded Ciel of what had happened at the mall, but he didn't have time right then to go after Sebastian and pretend to make up ... or ... actually make up? He wasn't sure at this point, but either way, he had more important things to do.

At the top of the stairs was _another_ living room (okay, this was obnoxious, this was most definitely a McMansion) that had two solid walls, the back wall nothing but huge windows, and the fourth not a wall at all, but instead had a waist high railing so you could look down into the foyer. Even up here the music was thrumming painfully loud and the lights were dimmed, inspiring, what had started as dancing, but had slowly progressed to public fondling with a bit of swaying back and forth not _quite_ to the beat of whatever brooding, angst ridden rock (if you'd call it that) song was playing right then.

Ciel was about a head shorter than most of the other seniors (and juniors), so didn't notice that there was a hallway leading off to the right until he'd shuffled his way through the other kids looking for Alois. He stood up on his toes as high as he could and managed to see that there was another hallway on the other side of the room, appearing to mirror this one. Giving one more glance around the group of slowly moving (and, in some cases, dry humping) bodies in the first room didn't reveal the blonde, so Ciel headed down the right corridor.

There were four doorways, two on each side, and _another_, though considerably smaller, sitting room at the end of the hall. Ciel felt his eye twitch in irritation at the excess. If he remembered right Edgar was an only child, his parents were still married (though both were out of town this weekend), and as far as he'd heard there wasn't anyone else that lived with them. Why in the world did they have a house this big? Just the cost of the electricity to heat and cool the space was probably twice as much as the mortgage payment on Joker's home. Ciel tried to rationalize it, stay unbiased. Maybe they'd lived in small quarters before this and had decided when they came into money that they'd have all the space they wanted. If they'd come _in_ to money ... they probably had always had money, and had probably always lived this way ... but again he was being biased. His family was more than well off but they'd lived in condos, large, glorified apartments, all his life. They usually only had one or two guest rooms, a study, an office ... maybe Ciel's ire was raised simply because he'd been cooped up in Joker's house almost every day after school, with barely enough room for all of them to squeeze in to, making him bitter.

His inward rantings and justifications came up short when he finally reached the small(er than the other) living room at the back. He'd been uncomfortable seeing the kids "dancing" earlier, but what they were doing two by two in here was borderline foreplay. On the sectional and the floor there were at least eight people in here in varying stages of undress (yes, he saw it, though he tried to look away quickly) intertwined with another person and uncaring that there were others in the room. Ciel turned around, red in the face and exasperated. If this was how these kids celebrated when they got good marks on their report cards he'd hate to see the Greek orgy in the future when they got a raise at their job.

Having seen more breasts in the last five minutes than he'd seen in his whole life combined, he walked quickly back down the hall, going to check the rooms there instead, hoping beyond hope that he wouldn't be faced with more partial nudity. The two doors on his left opened to two medium sized full bathrooms, miraculously not in use. On the right, the first room was dark, all the lights off and curtains mostly closed, only a thin line of moonlight illuminating a tiny portion of the room.

Ciel took a step inside, noting that there was thick carpet covering the floor (where as the rest of the house was either hardwood or marble-esque tiles), almost instantly muffling the den outside. There was a soft squeak, like from the springs of a mattress, and suddenly from the solid pitch black a dark silhouette emerged, no longer obscuring the bed Ciel had heard. The sliver of light hit pale skin, and, not for the first time that night, Ciel was assaulted with the sight of a naked girl.

"Get the fuck out of here, asshole," a decidedly hostile male voice growled.

He nearly tripped over his own feet trying to back out, but not before he heard a moan from the girl, and saw a bare arm raise, then lower to cover her face, the sound of dozens of little metal bracelets clinking together reaching him right before the light caught them, shining, around her wrist.

_Beast_.

The door couldn't close fast enough.

How ... in the _hell_ was he ever going to be able to carry on a conversation with her ever again! He'd seen her naked now and that was just the end of ever being able to look her in the eyes for the rest of forever. What was she thinking taking off her clothes in a place where other people could just walk in! No, no, other people be damned, where _Ciel_ could walk in! He didn't care if the entire world saw her naked as long as he didn't have to! Not that he was disgusted by nudity or anything he'd just never seen a personal acquaintance without their clothes before and now he wasn't sure how exactly that changed the dynamics of their relationship and - Who the hell was that guy! That was not Joker, or Dagger! And of course it wasn't Sebastian because ... well it just couldn't be Sebastian though he wasn't entirely sure where his reasoning on that was coming from but it wasn't the biggest issue right now, what the issue was-

"What are you doing?"

Ciel nearly jumped out of his skin, so immersed in his own (perceived) catastrophe that he hadn't noticed Alois walk right up beside him. He was standing there, still clutching the door knob, and probably looking like the biggest idiot in the world (Sebastian needed to move over, Ciel deserved the throne of stupidest person ever born much more than him).

"I ... don't go in there."

Alois raised his eyebrows, a smile tugging at one side of his mouth. "I won't, there are people fucking in there."

Ciel nodded, dumbly. "Yeah, I mean, wait. How did you know-?"

Alois waved vaguely around. "Everyone knows you fuck upstairs ... everyone except you, obviously." The blonde grinned at him. "I guess nobody told you?"

"No ..."

"So you just like, thought the weird sexy dancing and everybody making out was normal? Jesus, what's going on _down_ stairs then?"

"I'm ... probably just an idiot." Ciel conceded. The truth didn't always hurt.

"And how," Alois laughed, making Ciel turn away in embarrassment. It made perfect sense when it was explained like that. The festivities on the first floor were loud, rowdy, and drunken, but there wasn't anyone kissing or fondling each other. "Nah, nah, jk man, jk, come on, there's not nearly so much bumping of uglies on the other side."

Alois took Ciel's hand, pulling him along behind him. The sensual slow dancing (to music that was anything but slow) was still going on in the middle living room as they made their way through to the other corridor. Just like Ciel had thought, the lay out was identical. Four rooms, and a small common area at the end. On this side there was a distinct _lack_ of sexual activities, replaced with a thick cloud of smoke.

Alois flopped down on the vacant sectional, patting the cushion next to him, indicating that Ciel should join him (there were only two other people in the room, and they were sitting on the floor, against the wall, giggling stupidly as they passed a bong back and forth).

"You smoke?" Alois asked cheerfully, gesturing toward the other two teens. One of them, a girl, Irene, Ciel knew to be on the honor roll, while the other, a boy name Grimsby, was in classes with Ciel and Sebastian. He frowned once again at the principal's lack of knowledge on what she thought was a set boundary.

Sitting down, he shook his head. "Sorry no, I have asthma."

"Bummer," Alois smiled sympathetically, though it didn't reach his eyes. Again that same provocative "what a pity" look graced his features, giving Ciel the impression that the blonde wasn't above taking advantage of someone inebriated. Charming.

"Anything else laying around here? Preferably something not inhaled." Ciel tried for casual, but he wasn't sure how effective that would be on a drug dealer, someone who knew what cops _smelt_ like.

Alois grinned devilishly, putting an arm over the top of the couch and leaning in close to Ciel (if it hadn't been for all the harassment from Sebastian he might have shied away, but since he was used to his personal space being invaded he didn't flinch). "Where's your boyfriend?"

He didn't miss a beat. "Probably being a drunken jackass somewhere."

"Are _you_ drunk?"

"A little." A lie.

"Hmm."

It was a very disconcerting experience, watching someone calculate the best way to do some sort of harm to you. Even though in this case the only "harm" would be to Sebastian and Ciel's fictitious relationship. But he figured that the same look would flash across Alois' face were he considering the best way to gouge out someone's eye as well, making the hair on the back of Ciel's neck stand on end.

Humans had the same survival instincts of animals when danger was inherit, they just rarely listened to a voice that was telling them to flee when fleeing meant running out of someone's house without thanking them for dinner. The overwhelming need to be polite to their fellow man (even when their fellow man was wielding a rusty hatchet) probably got a good hand full of people killed annually.

"Tell you what," Alois murmured seductively. "Go get me a drink, some wine cooler bullshit that hasn't been opened yet-" (drug dealers also didn't trust others, as they probably shouldn't) "-and I can most def find you something 'laying around'." (Also, Ciel felt it was worth noting that even though everyone else was hell bent on getting as wasted as possible as fast as possible, Alois was sober, and asking for a drink with probably the lowest alcohol level ... smart, or perhaps paranoid?)

"Something like-?" Ciel ventured, tilting his head down a bit, smiling, appearing interested.

"Drink first, baby," Alois commanded sweetly. The pet name struck a wrong cord in Ciel, causing him to run a hand through his hair as an excuse to turn away and hide his grimace (the same thing Sebastian had done).

"Any kind of wine cooler? Not allergic to strawberries or anything?" Ciel asked playfully (this was more exhausting than he'd thought it would be) as he stood to leave.

"Nah, just cold."

"Alright, I'll be right back."

"I'll be waiting," was the sly answer Alois gave as Ciel left.

His mind started working in overdrive as he wondered a way around the current course of action he'd started. The set up had gone perfectly, but Ciel hadn't considered that perhaps Alois was just as malicious as Sebastian had said. Obviously taking any drug that the blonde gave him was out of the question, he'd seen the evil little glint in Alois' eye when he'd told him he was drunk, and doing something ... untoward to Sebastian's boyfriend seemed to be at the top of his to do list. Besides, Ciel really needed a sample of what it was exactly Alois was carrying, not a demonstration. He couldn't help but think that this would have all been much simpler if he wasn't involved with Sebastian. Then he could have just _bought_ drugs from Alois instead of ... _seducing_ them out of him.

Well, here was an idea though. Why didn't he build some rapport, separate from Sebastian, then offer money? He'd play coy a little more and then just attempt a regular transaction. That couldn't be too irregular, befriending a dealer (despite conflicting associates), then carrying on as one normally does when buying drugs. He felt that to be a solid start to a plan at least.

What if Alois insisted on Ciel partaking right then? Maybe Sebastian had sobered up enough to wait in the wings, to come to the rescue and chase Alois away again if it came to that. And Ciel could pretend that Sebastian was being unreasonable, leaving the camaraderie between himself and Alois intact. Perfect. Though he wished he'd have thought that far ahead earlier (but how was he to know that Alois would seem so keen on sexual assault?) and he would've told Sebastian not to drink at all. Well, hindsight, nothing he could do about it now and lamenting wouldn't remedy the predicament.

Back down stairs the (non-sexual) party was still in full swing. Maybe even in more swing than before. More people were up and about, talking loud over the music (which was still blaring), and the messy side effects of having a huge party with drunken teenagers were starting to show. With all the liquor spilled over the floors and furniture, the scoff marks from tennis shoes on expensive hard wood, and what were probably the shattered remains of some of the decor, Ciel couldn't help but wonder if this Edgar kid had a death wish or maybe planned on fleeing the country. Even the most easy going and understanding of parents would _not_ be okay with this level of destruction ... surely.

Ciel found Joker, still sober, in the kitchen chatting with two other guys. One was almost twice as big as Joker and had a shaved head, the other was more normal height and size (still a bigger kid though, and taller than Ciel), with blonde hair.

"Hey, hey Ciel!" Joker waved him over. "Hey bro, I was totally just like, talking about you."

"Nothing bad I hope."

"Yeah, because there's like, so much bad to say, 'Ew, check out this guy all like, smelling like fabric softener'."

"... Right."

"Anyway, I was telling Jumbo and Hermy about you, all like, vigilante punching Maurice."

"Will you accuse me of profiling if I assume you're Jumbo?" Ciel asked, turning towards the big guy with no hair.

He laughed, a deeper voice than someone in high school had any right to have. "That's right, good job on Maurice."

"Yeah, fuck that kid, I fuckin' hated him for ... ever." The blonde, Hermy, slurred. Unlike Joker and Jumbo, he seemed to have been drinking a lot, his blonde hair disheveled where as it looked like he usually wore it slicked back.

"Don't get like, worked up, you might puke," Joker giggled. Obviously seeing the other boy uninhibited was a bit of a treat for him.

"Stop making fun Joker, Herman's been depressed since we lost the rival game ..."

"Oh, you two are on the football team?" Ciel couldn't help but feel just a tiny smidgen of resentment towards them for losing, delaying, as he saw it, his investigation.

Jumbo was about to answer when Herman (Hermy was a nickname, Ciel supposed) interrupted, whining. "An' how come Doll didn't come tonight?"

"He's gotta crush," Joker said to Ciel quietly, then turned back to to Herman. "She's still kinda like, not wanting to get out and shit, she really liked Maurice and-"

"Fuck that guy-!" Herman exclaimed, only to cut himself off with something between a hiccup and a belch.

As much as Ciel thought that making more friends and there by widening his circle of influence was beneficial, he really needed to get back to Alois, so didn't have time to try to be likable when Herman seemed prone to drunkenly wreck the conversation. "Joker, are there any wine coolers in here?"

"Dude, I'm like, so super sober it's embarrassing so that you can drink tonight, at least party a little harder than fucking wine coolers ..."

"Sorry, but-" Ciel yelped as someone nearly tackled him from behind.

"Harriet the spy! I've been like, totally super like, looking for you!" Sebastian, now five times more drunk, squeezed Ciel in a hug, picking him up and spinning him in a short, stumbling circle.

"Sebastian! Put me down! You're going to fall over-!" He wiggled out of the older boy's grasp before his body could be used as a weapon.

"Oh my God." Joker gave over to a laughing fit, Jumbo chuckling with him, while Herman was still mumbling to himself about how much he disliked Maurice.

"Hey, hey, hey," Sebastian slurred very slowly, beckoning Ciel close like he was going to whisper, but continued talking in a normal voice that everyone could hear. "Hey did you like, find any clues, Velma? All like, jinkies and shit? About like, super secret drugs and stuff?"

Ciel felt a cold sweat break out over him. Sebastian needed to shut up ... right the hell _now_.

"-Are you still like, investi-ma-gating ... invursti-mi ... investi-"

"What the hell is he talking about?" Joker asked, still laughing.

"Scooby-doo?" Jumbo offered, snorting.

"_Sebastian_," Ciel cut in, stopping the other boy from rambling anymore. "Come on, let's go outside, get you some air-"

"Code for: make out." Joker mock-whispered to Jumbo, Ciel still perfectly able to hear him.

Irritated beyond belief, Ciel dragged Sebastian through to the back of the kitchen, where big, glass patio doors led to the back porch (though at this size most people would call it a "deck" rather than a porch ...). The deck was occupied only by a couple of kids who were seeing who could spit the farthest into the yard (he wished he was making that up), so Ciel continued down the steps, taking Sebastian to the far end of the lawn close to where the trees started. The entire time he'd been maneuvering through the house Sebastian had been chattering on, sometimes about nothing and sometimes too close to the truth for Ciel's comfort.

"So like, I was thinking about that show, right? The one we were like, talking about? And I remembered this other show that like, got canceled and the dude, like, the dude who made it? He like, made a movie to like, wrap it up. So I thought maybe like, they'd do that for like, the show I was talking about, so I went to find you to like, tell you, right? But then I remembered that you like, like Alois like, more than me or something, all because like, he has drugs and like, you're super secret Robot Sherlock and like, then I got all sad, but then you were in the kitchen and like-"

"Shut up!" Ciel nearly yelled, exasperated. In the cold night air he could see his breath making little smokey clouds in front of him as he panted in what was close to becoming all out fury. Sebastian swayed in front of him, quiet, and looking like a puppy dog who's owner had kicked it. Ciel felt a headache coming on (this seemed to happen when Sebastian was around ...). "You can't just ... you can't say those kinds of things in front of people. If my cover gets blown I'll have to completely abandon this assignment and may even have to give a refund ..."

"I just wanted to like, hang out ..." What happened to the Sebastian from the other day who tried to hide the fact that he was pouting? He was apparently gone and replaced with this version, the biggest, whiniest, pout-iest baby in the whole world.

"Sebastian, I'm _working_. Tomorrow we'll watch whatever stupid movie you want if you'll just-"

"So like, what? You think all the movies I like are like, fucking stupid? Yeah, well you're fucking stupid!" Sebastian yelled. Ciel glanced back towards the house, but thankfully the two kids who had been on the deck had gone back inside.

Ciel squared his shoulders and adopted a firm expression, having no more patience or expendable time to waste on trying to pacify a drunken idiot. "I don't have time for this. Alois is waiting on me and I-"

"Oh, yeah, fucking, like, Alois!" Sebastian hiccuped, stumbling, then continued. "Go and fucking like, hang out with that douche box, all because he's like, pretty and shit!"

"... What-"

"It's not my fault I'm like, all totally manly and like, not pretty just like, ruggedly handsome and-!" The older boy lurched back more drastically than he had been, tumbling over the hill at the end of the yard and into the trees.

"Sebastian!" Ciel rushed forward to find him laying in a small ditch, only a foot or so lower than the ground's level on the property.

"I fucking ... like ... fell," Sebastian said, dazed but unharmed.

"Yeah, you did." Ciel shook his head, letting out just a little laugh. "I'm going back inside now. Don't hurt yourself."

"Wait you can't like, just leave me here! I'll die of like, explosions!"

"... Huh?"

"It's like, all cold and shit and I'll like, freeze and die of-"

"_Exposure_." Ciel corrected. "You'll die from _exposure_-"

"Explosions kill people too!" Sebastian whined, holding out his hands for Ciel.

He sighed, taking Sebastian's hands to help him up. "If you come back to the party with me you can't talk about my work or - ah!" Instead of using Ciel to pull himself up and out of the ditch, Sebastian yanked down hard, making Ciel fall right on top of him.

"Jesus, you're like, way super heavier than like, you look," Sebastian groaned as Ciel scrambled to prop himself up, his elbows to his sleeves and the knees of his pants muddy, the ditch having held the water from it raining almost a week ago.

"You ... _asshole_!" When he did get a hand under himself he felt it sinking into the mud that was hidden under the soggy dead leaves.

"It's not like you're like, unhealthy fat, it could be all the like, cookies and shit-"

"That's not what I was talking about!" Ciel tried to crawl off of Sebastian, but when he started to get up the older boy clasped his hands behind Ciel's back, pulling him back down on his chest. "Sebastian, let me go-!"

He was silenced when Sebastian brushed their cold lips together. Ciel stared dumbly at the other boy, his hair tangled up with wet leaves, eyes blinking lazily, then he tilted his face, kissing Ciel again.

There was some firing of neurons going on inside Ciel's brain, some connection stringing itself together, like the sensation of having a phrase on the tip of you tongue or almost being able to remember the tune of a song.

Sebastian's mouth opened and he tasted like cloves, sugar, and alcohol.

Alcohol. He was supposed to be bringing a drink to Alois.

And whatever part of gray matter that had been dark before lit up with recognition. He hadn't liked when Alois had called him baby, because that's what Sebastian called him. Ciel was at once relieved for realizing why that had bothered him and also extremely, _extremely_ annoyed that it bothered him at all.

He shoved a muddy hand against Sebastian's face. "Idiot, you promised that you'd stop this! That we'd only do the absolute minimum of hand holding when people are around-!"

"There's like, nobody around," Sebastian replied.

Ciel missed a beat. "... What?"

"There's no one here."

"Then why-"

"Because I like, super want to."

Ciel was too busy being shocked to stop Sebastian from rolling them over where they were both laying on their sides on the ground, Sebastian's hands pressing at the small of Ciel's back, pulling him closer. Sebastian kissed him again, sucking on his bottom lip and running his tongue over it. Ciel felt all his muscles relax at the more intense contact, his body having missed the adrenaline rush that came with kissing.

_Stupid ... fucking ... hormone ridden ... teenage body_.

Sebastian's lips pecked lightly on Ciel's cheek and jaw, moving down to his neck, each little connection leaving a warm, tingling sensation. When Sebastian kissed the sweet spot under Ciel's ear his back arched, pressing the two closer. Since he was laying down, not standing, his knees had no reason to give out under him, so instead when the shiver shot down his spine he trembled against Sebastian.

There was an exhale of hot breath on his skin, and he felt Sebastian's voice rumble in his chest. "Oh, I _like_ that." And before he could think that the other boy's voice sounded huskier or wonder what it was exactly he _liked_ Sebastian's teeth grazed lightly on the same spot, and he wasn't just kissing Ciel's neck now, now it was lips, and teeth, and tongue, and his stupid, idiotic frame shook in pleasure again. And he was hoping so hard that Sebastian didn't hear the high little moan that escaped his throat that he almost missed the low moan that _Sebastian_ made against his skin. At this point Ciel also realized his fingers were all tangled up in Sebastian's hair and goddammit he hadn't even been drinking and this is the kind of thing that happens, getting hickied up by some cute guy in a fucking ditch-

-Second time in the last few days he was thankful that Sebastian couldn't hear his thoughts-

The older boy released his neck and kissed him again. Ciel's eyes were getting close to shutting contentedly, and there was just a tiny voice in the back of his head saying, "Hey, idiot, you need to get back to work. Alois, _the drug dealer_, is waiting on you and-" but why the hell would he want to put up with Alois' creepy come ons when he could stay here and kiss Sebastian- "_Drug dealer_. Might be important, what with this assignment being about _drugs_ and all-" Frowning disappointingly, Ciel had to admit that was right. He could fool around later, right now Alois was-

Sebastian's tongue slid against Ciel's, coaxing it into his sugary mouth so that he could suck on it, while he once again dug his teeth into Ciel's lips.

-Alois ... who? What? Something about working ... maybe. He couldn't remember.

He hummed into Sebastian's mouth, pulling at his hair, trying to get them somehow closer together, trying to let Sebastian kiss him more - then they turned again, Ciel back to laying on top and propping himself up with his elbows on either side of Sebastian's head, while both of them were breathing heavy, seeing the evidence in little clouds floating between them.

Sebastian's hair was three times as messy as usual, having leaves and grass all in it and also mud now from Ciel's hands, his face was flushed and he was grinning like an absolute moron, as he rubbed at Ciel's hips. Now that they weren't trying to _swallow_ each other Ciel's mind was a little bit less clouded by testosterone, at least enough where Sebastian's stupid smile irked him. He waffled for a moment, trying to think of an excuse for himself, but unable to concentrate properly still pressed against Sebastian ... but also afraid to move because he was pretty sure there was something rubbing against him ... something ... hard ... if you get his meaning. And as long as he stayed still he could pretend that it was the material from both their pants bunched between them, instead of excepting the obvious fact that Sebastian was aroused.

Finally, after coming up dry for plausible reasoning on _his own_ behavior, he deflected. "You're drunk."

"Like, a bunch," Sebastian nodded in agreement.

"So stop kissing me."

"You were like, kissing me too."

Ciel had already graduated high school (which was why he had free time to take on work), he had always excelled at school work, practical thinking, and also had a good portion of actual under cover field work under his belt. He'd made three points bellow a perfect score on his SATs and had an IQ of 118. So he mustered all of this aforementioned knowledge and intelligence into his fool proof rebuttal:

"Nuh uhn."

"You were like, totally kissing me."

"No I wasn't. You're drunk and don't know what you're talking about-"

Sebastian didn't argue back, instead grabbing the hood on Ciel's jacket and pulling him down flush against him and sucking on the other side of his neck. Surprised, Ciel gasped, shivering all over. Sebastian seemed to approve, making a deep sound in the back of his throat, and using his other hand to pull at Ciel's hips, pressing that aforementioned bunching of pants (it had to be his penis, there really wasn't any denying it at this point) harder into Ciel's upper thigh. Heat had been concentrated on Ciel's face throughout their little impromptu make out session, but the longer Sebastian lapped at the skin between Ciel's collar bone and ear the farther down his body the heat spread. Finally, realizing that Ciel wasn't going to try to escape, Sebastian let go of his hood and slid his hands under the younger boy's shirt, trailing his cold fingers from Ciel's hips to his ribs.

He couldn't take it.

In one quick motion Ciel was back up on his elbows and kissing Sebastian like it was going out of style. He only felt a very mild sense of irritation at noticing the older boy's upturned lips, smiling through being ravished, but that was all quickly burnt away at the feel of Sebastian's lips as he ran his tongue over them, and the way that the cloves made his mouth taste sweet, and how his pants were being loosened as Sebastian undid his belt, hand gliding lower than his stomach-

A familiar, static-y squawk jarred Ciel, making him look up, blinking, like someone who had fallen asleep during class. Ciel had had his eyes closed, so when he looked up he was temporarily blinded by the lights from the house.

"Hey," Sebastian was kissing at the underside of Ciel's chin, trying to get his attention back. "Hey, like-"

He clamped a hand over Sebastian's mouth, vision clear enough now to make out several dark shapes moving around the house, stopping at the foot of the steps, out of eye sight from anyone looking out the patio doors. Then he heard that static-y sound again, almost sounding like it was saying "Clear?"

A walkie-talkie.

From the small bit of the street he could see from his vantage point in the ditch Ciel made out what looked like several white cars and a black van.

"Oh ... crap."

Sebastian giggled at that, under Ciel's hand.

The thumping of the bass from the stereo died and all at once the sound of what was close to a hundred teenagers screaming and yelling, with bursts of what was probably the bark of a megaphone as the cops broke up the party.

"Like, what was 'at?" Sebastian asked after Ciel had struggled up, removing his hand from over the older boy's mouth.

"Shhh!" Ciel shushed, though with the sounds coming from the house he seriously doubted there were any police free to be combing the woods. He'd seen a couple of kids running, being pursued by cops not willing to tase an unarmed teenager, instead just yelling "Stop! I said stop!" Trying to get to Joker's car through the bedlam was not going to happen, and even though Ciel was sober and could avoid being detained Sebastian ... was not.

"Come on, we need to get to Joker's house where I left my car - goddammit-!" Ciel nearly tripped over his own pants as they slid down his legs, Sebastian having gotten farther at removing them than he'd thought.

The older boy just laughed at the display, rolling in mud, leaves, and grass. A swift kick in his side was meant to silence him, but it just changed the giggling to wailing. "Ow, ow, ow! Ohmygawd, what did I do!"

"Shut up!" Ciel whispered urgently, grabbing Sebastian's sleeves and dragging him to his feet. "We're going to have to walk to Joker's house, do you know the way back on foot?"

"Yeah, like, totally, but why can't we jus' like, ride with him-"

"I can't take you through a line of cops with breathalyzers, you'll get arrested-"

"Don't worry, in jail they like, allow conju- conja- conjigal-"

"Conjugal visits ..."

"Yeah like, totally, baby~"

**xox**

Ciel was still covered in sweat when they reached his apartment. He had dragged Sebastian through ... God, it must have been two miles of forest ... it was ridiculous ... and then they had waded through mud and tall grass staying off the road to get to Joker's house where Ciel had left his car. He wasn't sure if he was getting paranoid and hallucinating or if there was some secret volunteer police force he didn't know about, but he could have _sworn_ there were no more that ten to fifteen cop cars in this town. Yet every time he and Sebastian rounded a corner there was another white Crown Vic slowly creeping down the road, spot light out like there had been a prison break.

He had wanted to take Sebastian home, get rid of him so he didn't have to baby sit or accidentally have sex (which would probably sound like a horrible comparison if anyone had heard it ... it's generally frowned upon to sleep with someone you would also be baby sitting), but the older boy had whined and protested (drunkenly, so even more loud and over the top than usual) saying that he couldn't go home drunk or his mother would kill him.

So they went to Ciel's apartment, both looking like they'd just crawled through trenches in a battle, their clothes the only casualty.

"This is like, an apartment," Sebastian stated, dazed, as Ciel tried to help him get his boots off.

"I think I said that ... several times."

"Yeah but like, it's like, a little apartment ... like, where are your parents?" Pulling Sebastian's damp and dirty sweatshirt over his head revealed that his shirt was still clean, small miracle.

"At this time of night they're probably in bed."

"No, I mean like, _where_ are they, like, aren't they here? In like, town? Are you like, fucking alone?"

Ciel peeled his jacket, pants, and socks off of himself (he hadn't been lucky enough to be wearing boots like Sebastian, so his socks were soaked too), and went to his bedroom to retrieve some sweat pants for both of them.

"Here, take your pants off and put these on, they might be a little short-"

"What about your like-"

"No they aren't here. I'm staying here alone until my aunt is free next month. If I'm even still here next month."

Ciel's pants almost reached Sebastian's ankles, but the older boy was too drunk or too preoccupied to notice. "That's like, super cool bro, you're like, all like, so totally on your own and like, stuff ..." The sentence (if you'd call it that) had been twice as slow as usual, the words starting to slur together even worse, making Ciel need to concentrate to understand the other teen.

"I guess ... what are you doing?"

Sebastian shuffled right past Ciel, walking into the bedroom. Without asking or saying another word Sebastian let himself fall onto the bed. "It's like, super sleepy times ..."

"Yeah, on the couch!" Ciel growled, pulling at Sebastian's arm uselessly, unable to move his dead weight. "Get up and go back in the living room-!"

For the second time that night Sebastian tugged Ciel down. "Sssh, baby, it's like, super sleepy-"

"You-! Idiot! Let me up!" Ciel was trapped under a heavy arm, this time he wasn't kissed though, instead Sebastian's eyelids closed, his jaw going slack. "... Did you just ... fall asleep!"

No answer.

He let his head fall back onto a pillow in annoyance, deciding to wait till Sebastian had been asleep a little longer, so he'd be easier to move and Ciel could get up ... and maybe also push Sebastian off the bed. Both.

The last thing he thought of before he accidentally fell asleep was how much he wanted to punch Sebastian in the morning ... though in the last few seconds before unconsciousness took over he imagined kissing him again ... after punching him.

**xox**

When Sebastian was talking to Ciel he would often run his hands through his hair (fidgeting), slouch, and tilt his head to the side.

But instead of looking in any particular direction (and perhaps giving away whether he was making something up or telling the truth) he always maintained direct eye contact, leaving Ciel unsure on whether or not Sebastian was always lying or always telling the truth.

* * *

_a/n: wow, sorry for long chapter. btw, thank yall for the alerts, favs, and reviews, your feedback was really encouraging! thanks a bunch!_


	5. Chapter 5

**Disclaimer: Kuro belongs to Yana Toboso!**

**warnings: AU, OOC, mature themes, mentions of non-con, generally lame**

* * *

I may say it was your fault

because I know you could have done more

oh you're so naive yet so

_Naive_ - The Kooks

* * *

**Chapter 5**

There was nothing worse than waking up with a splitting headache, in a place you don't recognize, with an extremely awkward boner.

But that is exactly how Sebastian woke up, groaning as he tried to keep his head, and stomach, from spinning. Every minute movement of his head and neck made his unfamiliar surroundings tilt uncomfortably, making him super aware of how delicately he needed to proceed to keep the contents of his stomach in ... his stomach.

Where the hell was he?

How the hell did he get here?

What the hell happened last night?

No, seriously, where the _hell_ was he?

Trying to remember made a kind of blurred slide show speed through his mind, mixing with whatever he'd been dreaming about, and leaving him completely unsure on what had actually happened. At least he _hoped_ it was a combination of actual events and his dreams, because if sometime last night he'd really been talking to a guitar playing fish he had more problems than being hung over in a strange place.

Oh, and the crazy erection. But that was probably the most normal out of everything ...

He thought that closing his eyes might steady him, but it only served to make him feel like he was being spun around at unnatural angles, so he forced himself to look around, trying to focus first on what was right in front of him.

If he hadn't been trying to hold completely still he would have jumped the fuck out of his skin at seeing Ciel laying next to him, head resting on (and trapping) one of Sebastian's arms, nose pressed against his chest. There had been a part of his blurry recollections that had been him and Ciel totally making out on the wet ground, but there had also been a talking fish (with a guitar!), so he'd kind of disregarded it.

Oh my fucking God, they had sex, didn't they?

What the literal fuck! The first time he has sex with a dude and he was fucking passed out? What if it was like, super good? Oh my God, what if it was super bad ... like, _he'd_ been super bad? And now Ciel was going to wake up and be all like "I've had better" and go and tell the world he was a bad lay. He'd been drunk! Super, _hyper_ drunk! You can't fault him for a bad performance when he was barely conscious! Oh my triple, quadruple God, Ciel _took advantage_ of him! This little piece of shit sees him drunk and vulnerable and totally fucked his brains out and now Sebastian was a dirty slut and he was never going to be able to look his mother in the eyes again!

Okay, he was being stupid at this point. _But still_.

Besides, if they'd been gay sexing the night away he probably wouldn't have such a painfully stiff dick right now. And his ass wasn't in any ... _distress_ ... so, hallelujah and shit.

He really did need to try to remember though. He vaguely recalled some hot making out, but after that it was a smeared blank, and then a fish so ...

Calling Joker, who had been sober, was probably his best bet. He just needed to get his phone ...

... Whose sweat pants were these?

Well, Ciel may not have made with the sex but he might have ogled the goods. Fucking window shopper.

Against his better judgment, Sebastian sat up a little, trying to keep his head as level as possible. Attempting to slide his arm out from under Ciel made the younger boy shift in his sleep, scooting closer to Sebastian, and consequently rub against his dick. Sebastian moaned softly at the wonderful feel of friction, accidentally (well, not really) pulling at Ciel's hips and pressing them together even more ...

... Which was right when Ciel's eyes shot open, looking straight at Sebastian's scared/guilty/kind of horny expression, and undoubtedly feeling the erection that Sebastian had been rubbing against him ...

Sebastian would like the edit his previous statement about there being nothing worse than waking up with a splitting headache, in a place you don't recognize, with an extremely awkward boner.

Change that to: there was nothing worse than waking up with a splitting headache, in a place you don't recognize, with an extremely awkward boner, and then getting slapped _super_ hard in the face.

"Ow! Oh shit, ow!"

"What the _hell_ are you ... were you _humping_ me! What the hell is wrong with-"

"Bathroom," Sebastian choked out, trying to crawl over Ciel who started kicking and pushing him.

"Get off me!"

"Where's the-" Sebastian held back what he'd thought was a burp, but had a little too much sting to it. He covered his mouth with his hand and swung a panicked look towards the other boy. Understanding dawned on Ciel's face and he pointed quickly to a door across the room.

Sebastian stumbled through the doorway, thankful that the toilet was right in front of him, and emptied everything he'd eaten in the last like, forever, which wasn't really much, more like he was just puking straight fucking liquor and soda, doing a nice double burn on his throat. He gasped for breath between heaves, desperate for oxygen and eyes watering like a fucking bitch who couldn't handle his shit.

And you know, his dick deserved a shout out right about now because despite all the throwing up, and sour smell that went along with it, his cock was still fucking rock hard like he was getting a goddamn lap dance rather than kneeling in from of a toilet. Good job penis, you keep on keeping on.

The light came on, illuminating the white porcelain he was clinging to. "Are you ... do you need anything?"

"Fucking like, Tylenol, and a shit load of water," Sebastian panted, his stomach muscles still twitching but having nothing left to expel.

"Alright, but you should wait a few minutes or you'll just throw it all up."

"Yeah, fucking, fine."

He turned his head and watched Ciel walk out of another door that opened to a kitchen. The bathroom was long, with the washer and dryer in it as well. Was this an apartment? It looked like a single, like a one bedroom. Did Ciel live here alone? More importantly, _were these Ciel's damn sweat pants_? Jesus they were way too small to be walking around with a fucking boner. He looked like a fucking mixed up unicorn.

He felt way better now after puking his guts up though. Just get rid of the crazy headache and he'd be fine, well, he'd be more fine in a day's time, after his throat wasn't raw from stomach acid.

Ciel came back with a glass of ice water and medicine, setting it on the counter until Sebastian was sure he was done throwing up. Leaning against the glass sliding doors of the shower Ciel crossed and then uncrossed his arms. "So, do you want me to take you home?"

Sebastian snorted, immediately regretting it when that burn from his mouth moved through his nose too. "You gonna give me my clothes back?"

The other boy blushed. "They're ... covered in mud."

"Oh. Yeah."

There was a nice awkward silence in the bathroom now. All they really needed was a stupid clock ticking or something and it would've been perfect. Like, perfect for awkward hell anyway. Awkward hell, not eternal suffering, just eternally _uncomfortable_.

"I could wash them," Ciel offered. "You can wear my clothes until they're ... clean ... and stuff.

"Sweet, yeah that'd be ... yeah."

They were both avoiding eye contact. Jesus, what the hell was the matter with him? They'd kissed before! What was the problem? Well, they'd barely kissed, in front of people, not like, almost-got-to-third-base-where-no-one-was-looking-so-he-didn't-really-have-an-excuse-for-himself kissed.

"Let me see if I can find something bigger."

Sebastian was still sitting facing the toilet, his stupid hard on hidden from view. God, could it just go away already? They were not getting any! Let it go! He closed the lid and flushed, laying his head on the cold fixture hoping it would help.

It didn't.

"Here, these pants should fit better I was in a hurry last night and ... here." When he turned to take the clean shirt and bigger sweat pants they accidentally looked at each other, making Ciel turn redder than he'd been and retreat quickly. "There are ... towels," he gestured at the cabinet by the washer. "Take a shower, you smell like booze and vomit." And then he closed the door behind him like he was running away from a monster.

Sebastian banged his head against the toilet a couple of times, in an attempt to remember what the hell he'd done to scare the shit out of Ciel.

**xox**

_Sebastian?_

...

...

_I know you're there, stop ignoring me._

**xox**

You know those books and classes that teach you good manners? Like, cover your mouth when you sneeze and use the small fork for salad and the big fork for the main course? They needed to make that shit for more practical scenarios, like, _hypothetically_, is it bad etiquette to jerk off in someone else's shower? _Just a for instance_.

Okay, totally not hypothetical, Sebastian was seriously considering it, that or calling one of those "I've had an erection for more than such and such amount of hours" phone lines. He tried to focus on just showering for a while, which was kind of entertaining by itself with all the weird shit that he was pulling out of his hair, but the longer he was under the warm water the more sober he felt and the more he started remembering about the night before.

He wasn't worrying about scaring Ciel anymore, at least since he remembered how totally into it Ciel had been. How he'd let Sebastian suck on his tongue, and how he hadn't even tried to bite Sebastian's tongue when it was in his mouth, and how the younger boy had been sitting on top of him and how _good_ that had felt to have a little _pressure_ where it was needed and-

Seriously, if he were to masturbate in Ciel's shower, was anyone going to think less of him? Better question, was he sure that Ciel wouldn't find out? Would he go all CSI and have one of those black light things and be all like "There's semen in the shower", take a DNA sample and discover Sebastian had been the culprit all along and then he'd cave in interrogation once he found out they had his DNA and ... well it's not like self gratification was a crime. Right? Better that than walking around in those thin ass sweat pants with his dick at attention. Right?

Sebastian could almost hear that breathy gasp/moan Ciel had made when he'd gotten his teeth on him. His body felt hot and it had nothing to do with the shower. It _hurt_. He needed some _relief_.

But no, he fucking refused to stand here, in Ciel's shower, jerking off, while thinking about Ciel, who was in the next fucking room. He had just not sunk that low yet ... _yet_.

Taking in a steadying breath, Sebastian turned the water all the way over to cold.

"Oh fuck! Oh shit! Fucking shit! Fuck!" He whispered to himself, teeth starting to chatter as finally, _finally_, his dick gave up the fight and lowered the damn flag. He turned the water off as fast as he could, shaking and covered in chill bumps. Opening the shower door was also a special kind of suck since the air in the rest of the bathroom was colder, giving his chill bumps chill bumps. He tried to lean out to reach the towel he'd sat on the sink but lost his balance from all the damn shivering, having to catch himself on the shower door. When his hand hit the glass door it made a loud echoing _smack_, and he froze, thinking the glass was going to shatter or the door would fall off completely.

The bedroom door opened instead, Ciel rushing in. "Sebastian, are you okay-?" The younger boy stopped dead in his tracks, eyes glued to Sebastian's junk. He kind of wished the glass had shattered, at least if he'd have fallen and gotten cut all up Ciel would've been too distracted by the blood to look at his cock.

"It's cold!" Was the first genius thing he blurted out.

Ciel looked up, red up to his ears. "_What_?"

"It's cold, it's like, way bigger usually-"

"Oh my God-" Ciel covered his face with his palm.

"Well if you didn't wanna see me fucking naked why'd you run in here douche bag!" Sebastian demanded, snatching the towel and covering himself.

"I heard a noise! I thought you'd passed out or fallen over or-!"

"Yeah, yeah, whatever, fucking weirdo. Stealing my pants while I'm drunk then running in here first chance you get-"

"_Excuse_ me? I dragged your stupid face through a forest to keep you from getting arrested! While _you_ were trying to - to have sex the whole time!"

"Oh what the fuck ever, even if I was drunk I wouldn't wanna bang your lame ass!"

"You could have fooled me with the way you were kissing me and trying to undress me!"

"I must've been feeling desperate!"

Ciel jabbed him hard in that same fucking place in his side that he always aimed for. It had been less tender since he hadn't been getting poked nearly as much but the force behind his fingers and the fact that Sebastian didn't have any clothes on made it hurt three times as much as usual.

"Fucking quit it!" Sebastian yelled, slamming his left hand against the wall, close to Ciel's head. The younger boy backed into the wall, Sebastian looming over him trying to look as threatening as he could while he was holding a towel around his waist with his free hand. Ciel glared up at him, chin held high ... which was when Sebastian noticed the little pink hickey on his neck. A very distracting memory of the younger boy trembling against him while he _made_ that hickey played in his mind.

His cock perked up just a little.

_Shit_.

And then the weirdest thing that could have possibly happened ... happened. Instead of yelling or pushing him away Ciel threw his arms around Sebastian's neck and kissed him.

Sebastian forgot what they'd been fighting about. He also might have forgotten his own name there for a second, but quickly recovered, pressing the other boy against the wall and kissing him back like he goddamn _meant_ it. His hands went straight to Ciel's hips, lifting him up with his shorter legs on either side of Sebastian's waist, and the only thing keeping the towel up was the fact that it had gotten caught between them.

When Sebastian tried to get his tongue inside Ciel's mouth, however, it all came to a screeching halt.

"Ew," Ciel spat, turning his head away. "You taste like vomit."

"Shit." He backed off, making a very ungraceful grab for the towel at the last possible second to cover up his re-established semi-erection. "Give me some fucking mouth wash or some shit."

Ciel turned quickly away, the pink in his face starting to graduate to a more red tint, trying to seem like he hadn't been staring, waiting for the towel to drop.

_Fucking window shopper_.

**xox**

There was, _apparently_, a super thin line between hating the shit out of someone and wanting to fuck their brains out.

Who knew?

Sebastian had always believed in attraction or chemistry at first sight. But he'd never thought that hate at first sight could turn into ... something a little more than attraction or chemistry. It wasn't _love_ or anything. There weren't like, church bells ringing or doves fluttering around or some shit.

But it was definitely ... _like_. And he meant, _like_-like.

Jesus Christ, was this explanation making any sense to anyone who wasn't a twelve year old girl? Seriously, he could've sworn yesterday that he'd had a penis and at least an average sense of masculinity, but now he was twirling his hair and writing in his pink, glittery diary about having a crush on a _super_ cute boy while he listened to ... shit, what kind of music do twelve year old girls listen to? Well without the music part it kind of just fucks up his whole analogy.

Fuck it. He liked Ciel (_like_-liked him). He'd bedazzle his diary when he got home.

**xox**

_I said I was sorry, what else do you want from me?_

...

...

_Fine, fuck you too._

**xox**

"You have a nice ass, and I'm not just saying that." Ciel had straddled Sebastian much like he'd done the night before, except now they weren't sinking into mud but laying on Ciel's bed. Sebastian was dressed in spare clothes (a shame, really) and had both of his hands on Ciel's ass, squeezing to emphasize his point as his ear was being chewed on by the younger boy.

"I think I liked it better when you were drunk," Ciel grumbled, trying to swat Sebastian's hands away and continue kissing him at the same time. "You were so much easier to subdue."

"'Subdue'? What am I? A fucking rhinoceros or alligator or some shit?" Sebastian moved his hands up under Ciel's shirt, running his nails lightly over his back and delighting in the chill bumps that popped up immediately.

"What do-" Ciel paused as Sebastian licked his bottom lip. "-rhinoceros and alligators have to do with each other?"

"You know, they're like-" Ciel licked Sebastian's upper lip, letting his tongue poke into his mouth just enough to touch his teeth. "-both in Africa and get wrestled by dumbasses on animal shows-"

"No they aren't." The younger boy crossed his arms on Sebastian's chest and rested his chin there, regarding him disappointingly, like a teacher who caught you not paying attention. "Alligators only live naturally in the US and China. Some _crocodiles_ are in Africa. As for rhinoceros-"

"OhmyGawd, you have no idea how much I don't care." He rolled to the side, sending Ciel onto the bed. Sebastian propped himself on an elbow, using his free hand to cop another feel of Ciel's ass before getting slapped again.

"If you're going to argue at least do it right," Ciel replied, rolling his eyes. But even though he kept slapping and reprimanding him, he still scooted closer to Sebastian and wrapped his arms around his neck.

"I wasn't trying to argue tool box, I was just letting you know you have a nice ass. You're the one talking about wrestling me like Crocodile Dundee or some shit-"

"I didn't say anything about wrestling-"

"You said 'subdue', like Crocodile Dundee subdues big ass Australian animals-"

"Would now be a bad time to say I don't know who Crocodile Dundee is-?"

"_I'm just saying_, your ass is oddly round and shapely for a dude-"

Ciel kissed him again, this time sliding his tounge completely into Sebastian's mouth. He hummed as he let the younger boy push him over and crawl back on top of him, gliding his own tongue over Ciel's as his mouth was being busily explored. He also took the opportunity to get some more fondling in. Seriously, his ass was like potato chips, he couldn't have just ... one ... yeah, that metaphor fell apart, but whatever. He'd punch a baby right in the face if he could have a few minutes to squeeze this while Ciel was wearing these thin sweat pants. Yeah, previously the sweat pants were kind of a nuisance, trying to hide his dick and all, but now that they were rolling around all pressed against one another ... thank God for these fucking things. Speaking of-

"Hey," Sebastian said, a little breathlessly, breaking the kiss. "If you're going to sit all on me and shit can you at least like, scoot up a little so I can dry hump you or something?"

"Wow, remind me again how a Casanova like you is single?"

"Whatever," Sebastian snorted, taking Ciel's hips and moving him to a better position. "I'm like Han Solo, douche bag."

"Why? Because you always shoot first?" Ciel replied dryly, sitting up.

Sebastian blinked. "... Did you ... just make a premature ejaculation joke with a fucking _Star Wars reference_? Fuck making out, let's have sex."

"I'm not having sex with you," Ciel huffed, rolling his eyes again as he tried to seem uninterested in the fact that the t-shirt he'd lent Sebastian was riding up, giving him a small view of Sebastian's stomach.

"That's good, no offense but I'm not like, emotionally prepared for gay sex yet."

Ciel tore his gaze away from Sebastian's midriff, one eyebrow raised. "Do you need to meditate or something before you have sex with a guy?"

"More like a montage to _Eye of the Tiger_, running all over a beach and get one of those punchy bag things."

"I don't think I fit into this scenario, since I'm not Russian."

"So close, sweetness," Sebastian grinned. "It was Mr. T."

"Well I'm not a big black man either," Ciel grunted.

"You can still like, pity fools, if it makes you feel better."

"It does. I'm comforted by it." He poked Sebastian on his chest, then ran his fingers through his own hair, huffing. "Do you want to kiss me or lay there pining for a big, strong man with a mohawk?"

"Mmm, mohawks," Sebastian teased. Ciel was about to reply when Sebastian rolled his hips up, making good on his offer of dry humping, and was pleasantly surprised when the younger boy stifled a moan. Tilting to the side got Ciel off of him again with no fight, and before he got mounted for like, the third time, Sebastian crawled over the other boy.

"Ass," Ciel breathed before Sebastian kissed him again, both of his hands immediately tangling themselves in Sebastian's dark hair. God the kid was a good kisser, licking all over his lips to entice Sebastian's own tongue out, only to retreat and suck on the muscle instead of letting them meet on equal ground. Fucking crafty ass little punk.

He pushed his hips down, pressing them together where they needed it, and making Ciel release his tongue when he made a little gasp.

"Shit," Sebastian muttered, continuing to rub against Ciel like he was trying to start a gay camp fire. All of their previous bantering, that had been keeping the mood light, stopped as Sebastian grinded against the other boy. Ciel spread his legs more and pushed his own erection (yeah, he was totally hard, three points for Sebastian's super sexy making out skills) against Sebastian's, which was making him seriously reconsider the whole "not ready for gay sex" thing.

It couldn't be that hard (heh), right? He could probably figure it out in the next couple of minutes, couldn't he? I mean, it's just like, anal sex, so what, he needed like lube, and condoms? He was pretty sure he had a condom in his wallet. Though it was probably pushing on a year old ... and if he remembered right it was a hilarious yellow color with banana flavoring. Yeah, he hadn't thought that shit through.

Ciel turned his head to the side, eyes shut tight and apparently trying not to let all the sounds he was making in his throat out, not that it did much good with Sebastian right on top of him. There was that little pink hickey again though, like a goddamn bull's eye. Sebastian sunk his teeth into it, not like, super hard, but enough.

"Oh-" Ciel's body trembled under him and he moaned in the back of his throat. The sound vibrated through Sebastian's teeth and shot straight down to his cock, which was quickly becoming unsatisfied with the minimal amount of friction it was getting.

"Fuck, baby, touch me," Sebastian begged after separating from Ciel's neck and peppering his face with kisses. It was weird but Ciel's skin didn't feel hot like it should, as red as the other boy was, and it took Sebastian a second to realize it was because he was just as hot.

"Where?" Ciel asked, dazed, his eyes glued to Sebastian's lips.

"My elbow, it makes me super horny. _Where do you fucking think_?" Sebastian answered exasperatedly.

The younger boy's eyes snapped up, glaring. "Because being a jerk is always a great way to ask for a favor."

"'Favor'? What, do I have to pay you back-"

Ciel pushed Sebastian off of him, but stopped him so they were laying on their sides, facing each other. Sebastian opened his mouth to finish griping when he choked on every syllable as Ciel's fingers circled around his dick. His jaw moved, but no words came out, like a goddamn fish on land. There hadn't been any tentative caressing above clothes, Ciel had reached right into his pants (well, they were Ciel's pants actually) and started handling him like they'd been doing this every damn day for years.

Sebastian's spine bent in pleasure and he pressed his forehead against Ciel's. He licked his own dry lips and tried to think of something cool to say but the only thing his mind would supply for him were different variations of "fuck, baby, Jesus Christ, yes, please" so he decided to stay quiet rather than look like any more of a dumbass than he already did.

"Like this?" Ciel asked, expression unsure as he stroked Sebastian lightly and slowly.

This was one of those moments when Sebastian wished he was as suave as he pretended to be. The way that he was being touched was torturous, seriously, it was borderline inhumane. But he could only manage to nod stupidly at Ciel's question, his cock twitching involuntarily every time a finger brushed gently against the head. The younger boy gave a little relieved smile before kissing Sebastian again, completely having his way with Sebastian's mouth, since getting a hand job apparently paralyzed him.

And what the hell was up with that super cute face? Ciel couldn't just go around looking ... _fucking adorable_ and shit! Looking all like he didn't know what he was doing, all expectant like he hoped he was fucking touching him right, like seriously, who gave this douche bag permission to be ... cute out of goddamn no where? That was fucking cheating.

Ciel's hand tightened and Sebastian moaned into the other boy's mouth, limbs finally responding as he grabbed Ciel's ass again, pulling the younger boy against him. Sebastian went for the exposed side of Ciel's neck, attempting to make a twin to the mark from earlier. He had Ciel trapped, keeping his upper body still with his teeth and lower with his hands. Ciel trembled from Sebastian sucking on his neck, inhaling sharply when Sebastian rolled his own hips forward while simultaneously pulling Ciel closer, his hand caught between their two erections.

He kept that up, groaning against Ciel's throat and basically fucking the other boy's hand, trying to elicit some fucking sound out of Ciel besides a soft moan and quick breaths. Till Ciel shoved him, Sebastian's mouth coming loose with a sloppy pop. He only got to worry that he'd gone too far briefly before Ciel was ripping Sebastian's hand off his ass and redirecting it to his dick. Sebastian stared, shocked stupid at the feel of someone else's penis (what? he'd been alive for eighteen years and had never messed with any dude's junk besides his own, it was new, okay!). Ciel gasped, pressing his nose onto Sebastian's collar bone, stroking more roughly than before and bucking into Sebastian's hand.

He got over his shock just in time to fully appreciate Ciel finally making a sound, and shit, it was way better than he'd ever thought it'd be, because when he closed his fingers around the other boy's cock, giving it just one cautious feel from base to tip, Ciel drug his lips over Sebastian's throat, moaning: "Uhn ... S-Sebastian-"

And all fucking bets were off.

He struggled up faster than he thought he was able to, pulling the t-shirt Ciel had lent him over his head in one quick movement.

"Where's my fucking wallet?" He demanded, shirtless, breathless, and probably looking about half past crazy.

Ciel blinked, flushed and still laying down, sweats precariously low on his hips. "... What?"

"_Where_ is my fucking wallet!" Sebastian barked.

"I ... on the dresser-?" He seemed to recover, sitting up a little and working up some anger. "What the hell do you need-"

"Condom," Sebastian said simply, recovering the stupid ass banana flavored bullshit from his wallet and tearing the foil away with his teeth.

If Ciel hadn't already been as red in the face as he could get, he'd have probably blushed. "I said I wasn't going to have sex with you."

Sebastian paused, bright yellow condom in hand. "Still?"

"What do you mean 'still'? That was barely ten minutes ago!"

"Yeah, but ten minutes ago is like, forever in hormone years."

"No-"

"I already opened the condom-"

"I don't care-!"

And then Celine Dion's _My Heart Will Go On_ started playing.

Ciel frowned, leaning over to the nightstand where Sebastian's phone was. "Why is your ring tone for Joker the theme song to _Titanic_?"

"Because he's safe in my heart. Better question, how do _you_ know that's the theme song to _Titanic_? No, wait, better-er question, _why the fuck won't you have sex with me_?"

_Once more you open the door~_

Ciel rolled his eyes, scoffing. "Everyone's seen _Titanic_."

"Says the dumbass who thought a main part of _Star Wars_ was bears-"

_And my heart will go on and on~_

"Are you going to answer it?"

"No, if you haven't fucking noticed, I'm in the middle of trying to get laid."

_You're here, there's nothing I fear~!_

"I'm not having sex with you." Ciel said firmly, pointedly looking anywhere but at Sebastian, who was shirtless.

"_Why_?" Sebastian demanded.

_We'll stay forever this way~!_

"Why do I have to give you a reason?"

"Because it doesn't make any goddamn sense!"

The ring tone ended, sending Joker to voice mail.

"Are you really _that_ full of yourself?"

"Fucking - No! I'm reading your fucking signals!"

"I'm not giving you any stupid sig - ack!" Sebastian pounced, pinning Ciel down and kissing his neck. The younger boy flailed under him, evidently trying to find somewhere to push him, but afraid to touch his bare chest. The struggles quickly turned to shivers as Ciel tilted his head to the side to give Sebastian more room, making a contented humming sound in the back of his throat ... which was exactly when Sebastian stopped.

"_That_, that's a signal," he panted, hovering above Ciel and trying to decide between getting into a screaming match or more third base action. It was totally sad because he wanted both equally.

"I'm not doing it on purpose," Ciel growled, agitated and having trouble maintaining eye contact, since he kept glancing at Sebastian's partial nakedness.

"You fucking suck, dude," Sebastian huffed, going back down to his elbows and kissing Ciel on the lips. He could scream at someone anytime.

"Nuh uhn," the other boy responded, kissing back and settling on having his hands in Sebastian's hair.

He pulled away (prompting Ciel to make a whiny, discontented noise), and brought the condom he wasn't going to use up to his nose. "Jesus, on what fucking planet is this supposed to be banana?"

"Why do you have a banana condom ...?"

"It seemed really funny at the time."

Another ring tone started playing, this time it wasn't a song though, it was one of those generic "comes with the phone" rings. Ciel wiggled out from under Sebastian, then flopped down on his stomach as he picked up his phone from the bedside table.

"It's Joker again," Ciel said, frowning.

_ring ring_

"Ignore him." Sebastian replied immediately, scooting up on the bed to be next to Ciel and reverently caressing his ass.

"If he called both of us it might be important."

_ring ring_

"Or he's like, training to be a professional cock block."

Ciel rolled his eyes and hit the answer button.

"Uh, hello?" Sebastian raised an eyebrow at Ciel's groggy sounding greeting.

"Hmm, yeah, I just woke up."

Liar, liar.

"Oh, was that you calling Sebastian's phone earlier? Yeah, I didn't answer it since it was his ..."

Pants on fire.

"He's here, he's just asleep." Ciel turned his head a little, holding a finger in front of his lips. Sebastian leaned in and licked Ciel's finger from knuckle to tip, while the younger boy watched him, entranced.

"H-Huh, what?" Ciel stuttered when Joker said something over the phone. He covered Sebastian's mouth with his hand to keep from getting licked, but Sebastian just started licking his palm instead.

"Wait-" Ciel sat up, and Sebastian was fixing to start feeling him _all_ up, until he noticed that the flush that had been almost permanent on Ciel face all morning drained away, leaving the other boy pale and worried looking.

Sebastian frowned, and mouthed "_What's wrong_?" but Ciel waved him away, concentrating on listening to Joker.

A tiny little drop of adrenaline hit Sebastian's stomach as he started to consider what _could_ be wrong. He'd been so fucking busy trying to get some he'd completely forgotten that his friends could've been _arrested_ last night. And, Jesus Christ, what if their parents sent them to fucking boot camp or some shit? Or worse, Beast and Joker were both eighteen, they could go to for real prison. He was the scum of the goddamn Earth, more concerned with fucking Ciel than the deep shit his friends could be in.

Ciel swallowed. "Yeah, I'll wake him up. We're on our way."

"What's wrong?" Sebastian asked out loud after Ciel had hung up, working super hard on not panicking.

"... Beast's in the hospital."

**xox**

"What did he say? Does she have a fucking broken leg? Did she drink too much? Did she like, have a _fucking stroke_? Shit!"

Sebastian was having trouble sitting still in the passenger seat of Ciel's car. He was tapping his foot, fidgeting with his seat belt, and chain smoking like a goddamn chimney, on a train, crashing through a burning building.

"For the millionth time, _I don't know_. _Joker_ didn't know. Hopefully by the time we get there they'll let people in to see her." Ciel didn't look good. He'd been pale since he got off the phone and was now starting to progress to a more green shade. If Sebastian hadn't been so busy freaking out he would've shown some concern, asked if he wanted to pull over, asked if the cigarette smoke was bothering him. As it was though, he couldn't give a fuck ... well, he _did _give a fuck. He was surprised that Ciel cared about what happened to Beast or any of his friends at all, what with the deadpan-business like way he'd referred to Wendy when they'd first met, but that surprise was drowned in his own panic and adrenaline, the tiny fuck he gave washed out to sea because he was losing his shit with worry.

"Can you like, drive any fucking slower?" Sebastian snapped, throwing a cigarette butt out the window and immediately lighting another one. His throat felt raw and his stomach turned uneasily in protest, cloves were definitely not made for nervous chain smoking.

"I'm driving the speed limit." Ciel responded, his voice an uneasy octave lower than usual. Later, Sebastian would learn to recognize that as a sign that the younger boy was struggling to stay calm. But again, he couldn't be bothered to notice or care about Ciel right then.

**xox**

He practically jumped out of the car when they arrived at the hospital, barely giving Ciel time to put it in park.

It was one of those fucking gray ass days where the wind was blowing so hard you had to yell to carry on a conversation sometimes. Sebastian's hair was getting whipped all over the place as well as the almost-too-small jacket he'd borrowed from Ciel. The freezing wind was painful on his legs since he couldn't be bothered to wait till his jeans had dried all the way (he could get away with wearing some of Ciel's shirts or hoodies, but not his pants).

The only hospital in town had the stupidest parking lot of any place that ever existed. The main part, or center, of town was in what you'd call a flood plain. In the past, when it would rain a whole super lot, businesses and homes would get their first floor ruined by the water. That had been like, forever ago or some shit though, because now any building in the middle of town were hung buildings or in really weird cases on stilts. The first hospital in town, like, back in fucking olden times, had been so super flooded and super pissed about it, that they built the next one on some crazy steep hill, leaving the entire parking lot on a goddamn aerobic torture incline.

"Come on!" he shouted at Ciel, grabbing him by the hand and dragging him up the parking lot, the wind buffeting them like crazy the whole way up.

They got over the hill just in time to see a cop dragging Joker and Dagger out of the building by their collars.

"The fuck-?" Sebastian frowned, wondering what the hell kind of trouble the two of them had started to get kicked out of a hospital.

The cop pushed them both forward, then turned and went back through the automatic doors into the hospital. Joker hadn't even caught his balance from getting shoved before Dagger tackled him, sending them both into a bush.

"Shit-" He let go of Ciel and ran inelegantly the rest of the way to the entrance, holding his damp jeans by the waist so they didn't fall off his fucking ass. Joker, who'd been caught off guard and stabbed in the back by a bush, was thrashing under Dagger, who was trying to hold his arms down to punch him. When he bowed his fist back he lost some of his balance and Joker threw him off, only to jump on top of Dagger and try the exact same thing.

Sebastian grabbed Joker under both his arms and dragged him backwards (which wasn't like, _easy_, Joker was only like an inch, or half an inch, shorter than him) and he had to actually _kick_ Dagger in the shoulder to keep him from lounging at Joker again. He swung the red head as best he could (seriously, you pick up a grown ass person and try throwing them around) behind him so he could stay between the two.

"What - the _literal_ fuck!" He panted, as both of the other boys were catching their own breath. Ciel had caught up, but was standing several feet out of harms way, regarding the fight with what Sebastian assumed was a calculating stare. He was pissed for a third of a second that Ciel didn't have his back, but knowing Dagger and Joker he decided it was probably for the best. Ciel might get punched in the face by Maurice like a champ, but Maurice was a punk. "What the fuck is wrong with you two!"

"Ask that asshole!" Dagger shouted, taking a quick step to the right, like he was going to try to get past Sebastian.

He pushed the blonde. "Calm the fuck down! What happened!"

"It's not my fucking fault!" Joker yelled back, running his hands through his hair that was hanging partially out of the ponytail he usually kept it in. Where Dagger looked all blind rage, Joker looked like he was falling apart. "She went off into the party with _you_!" He pointed accusingly at Dagger. "Why the fuck is it my fault that you _let_ some cock sucker drug her!"

"You fucking-!"

Sebastian had to physically hold Dagger back as he tried to get at Joker again, which was a lot harder than it should have been, since he was almost completely distracted by what Joker had said.

"Drugged?" Ciel chimed in, finally joining the conversation. Oh, shit. _Drugged_. Like, with whatever the fuck it was that got their other classmates sent to rehab clinics? Like, what _literally_ killed Wendy?

"Someone roofied her," Joker snapped, glaring at Dagger.

Sebastian pushed Dagger hard, making him stumble to catch himself before he fell, then turned to Joker. "_Roofied_? Like ... for seriously?"

"Yeah, before this douche bag got us fucking like, kicked out of the hospital, Beast's mom told us they found Rohypnol in her drug test."

"So ... was she ..."

"Raped?" Dagger said vehemently. "No, thank fucking Christ. Not that Joker did anything to-"

"She was with you!" Joker yelled, his voice dangerously close to becoming a shriek.

"You were the only one of us not drinking! You should've been-!"

"Both of you shut the fuck-!"

All three of them were cut short though, because that's when Ciel threw up.

**xox**

Beast's mom wouldn't let Sebastian in to see her. And after Dagger and Joker had started a fucking fight in her hospital room he couldn't really blame her. According to her mom she was mostly passed out anyway, waking up just long enough to complain about a splitting headache and vowing to "find the bastard who did this and kick him in the balls." Beast's mom, tiny, quiet woman that she was, shook her head as she whispered those parts to Sebastian.

He wasn't sure who the person who drugged her should fear more, Beast, in all her righteous womanly rage, or her fucking dad, tall as a goddamn tree and stronger than a fucking bull, who was headed back to town, probably driving fifty over the speed limit and cursing like a sailor the whole way.

Dagger bailed shortly after Ciel had nearly puked all over their shoes, his phone starting to ring over and over. As soon as he hit ignore whoever it was would hang up and call back again (probably his parents). He'd gotten caught by the cops the night before and had been picked up from the police station by his parents at around four in the morning. Needless to say, he was supposed to be fucking grounded for probably the rest of his life, and had sneaked out to check up on Beast at the hospital.

Joker, being stone cold sober, hadn't been held by the police, and had driven home the night before, thinking that the rest of them had either escaped or got taken in by the cops. It wasn't until earlier that morning when he'd called Beast and her mom picked up did he realize that anything was amiss. And then the subsequent frantic calling to Ciel, Dagger, and Sebastian that had led them all to the hospital.

**xox**

Sebastian exited through the same sliding doors that Dagger and Joker had been forcibly tossed from, immediately regretting it as the wind tried to blow him away, wet pants and all. When he started heading downhill to where Ciel had parked he could see that the younger boy was standing outside his car, leaning against it with his head back, still looking "green around the gills" (as someone's grandma would say). It made Sebastian wonder if maybe Ciel wasn't cut out for this whole drug busting shit after all. Not that the thought of something horrible happening to his friends didn't make_ his_ stomach turn, but he just figured that Ciel was too hardcore for that.

"You feeling any better darlin'?" He grinned, nerves no longer high strung now that he knew Beast was going to be alright.

"Not really," Ciel muttered, moving closer to Sebastian.

He waffled for a minute. Was he allowed to hug him now? Were they like, _really_ dating? Did he need to ask him out or some shit? No seriously, the hugging part was most important.

He stalled, trying to hook his bangs behind his ear so they wouldn't be going all crazy in the wind. "So like, Rohypnol, huh? Crazy shit."

"The fact that it's actual Rohypnol is worrisome." Ciel replied, chewing on the frayed sleeve of his jacket. Sebastian remembered that Ciel had said he was going to wash it everyday, and that was starting to become evident.

"Why is it ... _worrisome_?" Sebastian asked.

He was starting to worry himself. If he _didn't_ hug him, and like, they just went back to acting how they used to, would it be like none of the shit from last night or that morning had happened? He felt like he was looking at a tiny ass window of opportunity that was closing all slo-mo in front of him.

"Because date ... date rape drugs are typically home made, Rohypnol is illegal in the US, and as far as we know only soft narcotics and the drug the other students overdosed on are common in this area," Ciel mused. Sebastian didn't miss the pause the other boy made, he was obviously uncomfortable about the prospect of what might could have happened to Beast (well, who wouldn't be?), and it made Sebastian even more sure that maybe Ciel was in over his head here. "The guy who drugged her would have had to have access to someone who sells things from across the US border ..."

"I guess we're like, being sexist and assuming it was a dude?" Sebastian snorted. "Well, I don't think it was Alois. The guy's a fucking tool but he wouldn't like, give something like that out at a party where his friends and shit were."

Ciel paused and gave him kind of a nasty look. "Maybe not to Beast, no." Sebastian frowned and was about to comment when Ciel continued. "And I'm not assuming, I know it was a guy."

"What?" Sebastian laughed nervously. He saw that queasy look flash across Ciel's face again and it made him stand up a little straighter. "How?"

"I ... saw him, last night. I walked into a room upstairs and Beast was in there with a guy and ..." Ciel looked like he might throw up again, but Sebastian suddenly didn't give a shit.

"You ... _what_? You saw some ... fucking dude drug her and-"

"No," he replied quickly, taking a step closer to Sebastian, who backed away from him. "I saw her on a bed, there was a guy in there, it was dark though, I didn't see him, I just thought they were ... if I'd have known-"

"So, what?" Sebastian felt his body getting hot. He was so pissed, but he had to give Ciel a second to explain, not fly off the handle, just, fucking calm down. "You just thought Beast would hook up with some dude at a party? You know, if she knew you thought that, she'd be like, so fucking pissed at you."

"I really ... don't know her well enough to make that call. There's nothing wrong with ... hooking up or whatever you want to call it so-"

"Yeah, there's nothing fucking, _wrong_ with it, but it's just not something _she_ would do!" Sebastian was losing his cool, he kept moving away from Ciel every time he tried to get closer. "If you'd have like, fucking told me or Joker that shit, we'd have known something was wrong!"

"I didn't know-"

"She could've gotten fucking _raped_ Ciel!"

"But she didn't-"

So he fucking punched him.

Right in his stupid, goddamn pretty boy face.

If he hadn't been so mad he would've taken the time to realize that Ciel didn't go flying, or even stumble very much. He turned his head with the blow and took one step back when it landed. Sebastian's hand hurt like a mother fucker though, and the fact that it seemed like his hand hurt more than he hurt Ciel made him even more pissed.

"Fuck you." He growled, doing his best not to wince at the pain in his hand.

Ciel brought a hand up to his forehead, where Sebastian had hit him (though he thought he'd been aiming at his nose), but made no move to strike back. "Sebastian, I'm sorry-"

"No, fuck you. Fuck this whole fucking ... bullshit, okay? When we get back from break you can tell the fucking principal to fucking expel me or some shit. I don't wanna have to look at your goddamn face for the rest of my fucking life."

Ciel looked up and Sebastian had to grit his teeth together to keep his expression from changing. The kid looked like he was torn between crying and puking, and now the whole puking thing made sense. He felt guilty. Well, fuck yeah he should feel guilty.

Dagger and Joker at each other's throats, what _could have_ happened to Beast, his friends were fucking falling apart.

If Sebastian hadn't been so busy hanging out with Ciel all the time he could have kept all the tension between Dagger and Joker from building up, could have been with them at the party and maybe Beast wouldn't have gotten drugged in the first place, maybe he could have even talked with Doll when the whole Maurice thing went south, kept her from becoming a wreck over it.

But no, he'd been too busy trying to irritate Ciel, then trying to be friends with him, then trying to fuck him.

"Sebastian, really, I'm sorry, I didn't know-" He seemed desperate. But that could be part of his act.

"And you know why you don't like, know? Because you're a fucking robot or some shit. A fucking douche bag who doesn't give a shit about anyone but himself and that's why it never fucking entered into your little self centered mind that something was wrong! I can't stand one more goddamn minute around you!"

He turned and left, not turning around when Ciel called him, because he was pretty sure if he looked at his face, whether it was an act or not, he'd lose his resolve.

**xox**

_Sebastian, please talk to me._

Your message could not be sent. Would you like to try again?

* * *

_a/n: thanks so much for the alerts, favs, and reviews, yall are so super nice and fluffy_


	6. Chapter 6

**Disclaimer: Kuro belongs to Yana Toboso.**

**warnings: AU, OOC, mature themes, generally lame, Ciel being an inner monologue olympian**

* * *

**Chapter 6**

We live in a dangerous time. Crimes, of both violent and non-violent nature, are high. It's not uncommon, especially for young people who are seen as easier targets, to be mugged or taken advantage of in some way.

There are several very simple things you can do to not leave yourself open to attack.

**xox**

Rohypnol is illegal in the US but not in other countries. It's commonly used as a medication for the short-term treatment of insomnia and also used as anesthetic to be taken before some surgical procedures. The drug is infamous in the US as the "date rape" drug because one side effect is mild amnesia which makes it more difficult for victims to recall details of their assault and there-by bring their assailant to justice. Dependence usually only occurs in cases where the drug is taken as literal medication. Withdrawal symptoms are normal, i.e. insomnia and moderate to severe anxiety.

_But who cares_ ...

The mystery drug circulating amongst the student body was characterized by symptoms similar to that of cocaine. Before the inevitable crash the person was reported to experience a high with increased energy and (of course) a euphoric feeling. That crash, however, _also_ shared one similarity to more chronic cocaine usage, which was chest pain, that many of the victims complained of while still coherent.

_I don't care_ ...

Ciel was face down on his bed, trying to decide on his next move. Most people were prone to pacing while thinking, Ciel, however, did his best reasoning when he appeared to be impersonating the world's laziest slug.

He was attempting to go over the information on the substances in play, but kept getting distracted by how much he just didn't give a damn. Instead his train of thought was repeatedly derailed by his more personal dilemmas.

He wanted to kiss Sebastian.

Again.

_More_.

Sebastian wasn't talking to him. Well, hadn't started talking to him _yet_.

He replayed walking in on Beast with the unknown attacker over and over, but eventually had to stop when his stomach made another violent turn. The thought that he had been so close to what was literally sexual assault, and had done nothing, made guilt sink and pool in his gut like poison till he had to force himself not to think about it to keep from throwing up again.

How could he have known? He'd only been here for a little over a month, he could barely predict how Sebastian would react to a given situation, and the two of them had been together almost every moment since he'd arrived, how was he supposed to know that Beast wasn't the type of person who'd hook up with someone at a party?

Why _couldn't_ he predict how Sebastian would react? What had happened to the youth of today in the three years he hadn't been working that made them so unpredictable? Was it the fact that at this age they were part way between being adults and children? Making their reasoning, motives, and actions a horrible maelstrom of the irrational, emotional, and partially mature?

He wanted to kiss Sebastian.

That was so completely aggravating. He couldn't keep a line of inner dialogue going for longer than five minutes before he'd come back to that.

But Sebastian's lips _were_ soft. And he _did_ press his teeth into Ciel's lips at just the perfect pressure where it was more than noticeable but far from painful.

It had been dark. Maybe if there had been more light in the room he would have been able to tell that Beast had been under the influence of a drug. But what if she'd just been drinking? Would he have been able to tell the difference between her being drunk and being roofied? Well, that guy shouldn't have been trying to have sex with her if she was drunk either. Where had Joker and Dagger been anyway? Why was it Ciel's responsibility to take care of her? Better question, what was wrong with the _guy_ who took her in there? This entire situation wouldn't have even occurred if there weren't horrible people in the world. What kind of upbringing leads to someone being such a complete ... _fucker_.

Was there any connection between this ... incident and the drug the other students had overdosed on? Had anyone overdosed last night? How was he going to find out before school was back in if Sebastian didn't talk to him?

Would he never get to kiss Sebastian again?

He recalled all the times before when Sebastian had kissed him at school, usually on the neck, and how Ciel hadn't appreciated them at the time, too busy being annoyed. They were like a thousand missed opportunities to contemplate on how warm Sebastian's mouth was, how when he breathed out Ciel could smell the spicy, almost cinnamon flavor of clove cigarettes, and how as Sebastian's lips moved (too soft, too slow, too _sensual_) his fingers would twitch wherever they were resting on Ciel's person, flexing to relate that they were willing to hold on should Ciel try to move away.

... With Rohypnol being illegal in the states it would make sense if Beast's assault and the overdoses were related. The drug that the students OD'ed on had no known traceable elements (i.e. if someone was tested for drugs, even by hair sample, it would turn up negative because there were no known properties in the drug they had taken), which implied a higher knowledge of actually _producing_ narcotics than the average dealer (or even cook) had. With that added knowledge, it would also be safe to assume that they had higher connections within other circles of an illegal nature, meaning that procuring _actual_ Rohypnol wouldn't be difficult or unexpected. But, of course, that was just conjecture, though a legitimately plausible conjecture.

_I want to kiss Sebastian. I want to kiss Sebastian. What the hell do I need to do to be able to kiss Sebastian again?_

How do you apologize harder. How could he point out that he honestly hadn't known anything was amiss while still being sympathetic and not laying blame on any of Sebastian's other friends?

He could use Alois as a scape goat. He had been too distracted by Alois' uncomfortable advances to be aware that something was wrong with Beast. Sebastian already hated Alois, surely he'd jump at the chance to blame him for something ...

Ciel remembered how Sebastian had backed away from him when he'd been trying to explain himself. Like he was so disgusting that he didn't want him near.

He felt disgusting. A girl was almost ... he had been right there. If the police hadn't arrived when they did ...

Finally rolling on his side, abandoning his slug pose, Ciel curled in on himself, wanting to use his own body to put pressure on his stomach and prevent himself from vomiting.

He was a little put off that he couldn't wallow in misery and self hate like a normal person and just _cry_, instead suffering from what could have easily been confused for food poisoning. This wasn't fair. Why couldn't he listen to some depressing, angst ridden music, cry his eyes out, and lament his own birth like the rest of the world?

Though he was really being very self centered (just like Sebastian had said). _He_ wasn't the one who had almost been ...

The thought was left unfinished as his frame jolted, the only brief warning he had before he had to stumble into the bathroom and empty nothing but stomach acid, saliva, and mucus into the toilet (any food in him had long since been thrown up).

As he struggled to catch his breath, on his knees there in the bathroom of his one bedroom apartment, he had a very weak moment where he missed his mom, knowing that if he'd been home she would have been right beside him, patting him on the back and saying something comforting. Ciel was also struck by the irony of young adult-hood, wanting to be independent, left well enough alone, and respected by your parents, until you were sick, depressed, or defeated, and suddenly you craved for nothing so much as to be coddled and assured that your mom or dad would take care of everything for you.

... Ciel wanted to be around Sebastian. While he had thought the other boy's constant chatter had been obnoxious it at least kept Ciel's tendency to wax philosophical about the plights of growing up at bay ...

The sound of his phone ringing shocked him out of his misery, scrambling to get up and run to the other room where he'd left it (before even flushing). He hadn't realized how much his chest had swollen with hope until he felt it deflate immediately when he saw it wasn't Sebastian calling.

He paused for a second as he stared at the number that wasn't programmed in his phone. It was a local area code though so just maybe ...

"Hello?"

"'Sup baby?"

The voice lacked the low pitch and drawl Sebastian's had.

"... Alois?"

"Awh, aren't you cute recognizing my voice."

Ciel sat down on his bed, rubbing a hand over his face. He really didn't feel like he was emotionally stable enough to get any actual work done today. With him being as distracted as he was the likelihood that he'd slip up was much higher.

"I didn't know you had my number."

"Yeah, Joker gave it to me."

That stupid, red headed idiot.

"Oh good, I wasn't sure how I was going to get in touch with you." He hadn't even considered it.

"Been waiting on that drink for a while now."

"Did you get taken in or anything ..?" If Alois had been carrying, like Ciel assumed he had been, he'd have been in a lot more trouble than the kids who were drunk.

He heard the other boy snort. "Yeah right, I'm not lame enough to get caught by some fucking hick cop."

"Well that's good, sorry about disappearing, I was trying to get away and all-"

"Nah, nah, I totally understand." A metallic sound came from Alois' end, similar to a handful of change being sat down on a surface. "I _do_ have a way you can make it up to me~"

That sounded ... unsavory. In fact, Ciel would say Alois had a talent for making almost anything sound unsavory.

"Oh yeah?"

He _was_ here to work though, despite not _wanting_ to right now. With the possibility of Sebastian never speaking to him again he couldn't afford to burn any more bridges.

A cold sweat suddenly broke out over him. He just realized that if Sebastian did indeed mean what he'd said that Ciel would have to go back to school completely _alone_. The worries at the forefront of his mind had been on how to get Sebastian to forgive him, he hadn't even considered the embarrassing social ramifications of being "dumped" and everyone knowing and looking at him with pity, or worse, if Sebastian told them _why_, with contempt.

Ciel missed Alois' reply. "Sorry?"

"I _said_-" the other boy huffed from his end of the phone. "Come and hang out with me tonight and I'll forgive you and hook you up."

"Hook me up ..?"

"You said you wanted to do some shit of a non-inhaled nature, right?"

"Oh yeah, yeah, definitely."

He'd forgotten. This was a bad idea. If he was having trouble keeping his story straight over the phone, where he didn't have to worry about his expression and body language giving him away, actually meeting Alois in person would probably be disastrous.

"Sweet. You want me to pick you up?"

"No, just give me directions, I'll meet you."

No one could know where he lived. To a more ... sober individual a teenager who lived in a one bedroom apartment would seem suspicious. Come to think of it, when his Aunt _did_ show up what were their sleeping arrangements going to be? Surely no one expected him to sleep on the couch for the remainder of their stay. They'd have to get a bigger place. But why hadn't they gotten a bigger one to begin with? Why was he just now noticing this? This particular job was too taxing on his attention span, he was missing things.

"Lemme give you the address, just punch it into a GPS-"

Ciel took down the address Alois gave him and got off the phone to get ready. He was half way through changing his clothes before he realized he hadn't asked Alois what they'd be doing. He stood there going over the conversation he'd just had. The blonde had just said "come and hang out with me tonight" and Ciel had accepted it without any further questions. What the hell was wrong with him? This was the same guy who he was reasonably sure had been attempting to take advantage of him at a crowded party just last night, now he was going somewhere, where they could conventionally be alone, and hadn't given it a second thought. Getting a sample of Alois' product was important, but was it important enough to be stupid about it?

He needed a safety net, he needed to tell someone what he was doing and have some sort of check in system so they'd know if something had gone wrong.

Ciel buttoned his pants then picked up his phone again. Sebastian hadn't answered any of the texts he'd sent today. Maybe if he explained the new situation to him he'd be more likely to answer. He stared at the little keyboard on his screen, trying to think of how exactly to word his request without it sounding like an order, but also convey the importance of the circumstances. But Sebastian _had_ said that he was done with the whole case, that he'd rather be expelled than help Ciel any longer.

There were a hundred things he could have typed, a hundred harshly worded threats that may have scared the older boy into cooperation. But as Ciel tapped out a message only one line ever entered into his mind.

_Sebastian, please talk to me._

The phone sounded before he could even put it in his pocket.

Your message could not be sent. Would you like to try again?

Ciel swallowed back a sharp dryness in his throat, and in a spectacular display of masochism decided that if anything untoward happened to him ... he deserved it.

**xox**

Make sure your cellphone is charged before you go out drinking with friends.

It's also a good idea to tell someone where you're going and about how long you'll be gone.

Even if your cellphone is charged, accidents happen, so if a friend or family member knows you aren't back when you should they can come pick you up.

**xox**

Alois lived in what looked like a Queen Anne house. The neighborhood wasn't a planned or mass manufactured one, you could tell by the unequal yards, as if they had all bought lots separately and built homes of varying sizes and shapes that they desired, leaving the impression that some had bigger lawns than others.

The front porch, that wrapped around three sides of the house, should have been an indication to the upkeep of the home itself. There were a couple of large pots, presumably for plants, that were barren, either because it was winter and there was no need to plant anything, or because the occupants hadn't gone through the trouble of keeping anything alive in them to begin with.

The inside showed the same lack of concern, fitted with antique-esque furniture that was covered in mail or other common objects and didn't appear to have been polished or kept correctly. Any bit of floor that was hardwood had big, burgundy rugs covering a large portion, though they may have originally been a richer color, looking slightly dingy in the dim lighting, like the owner had allowed too much foot traffic on them, wearing them down.

The whole place gave Ciel the impression that it was (for lack of a better term) a grandmother's house. The kind of place that had what could have been well maintained, older decor, but because of the occupants growing age or indifference, hadn't so much fallen into disrepair as it just needed a thorough dusting, tidying, and polishing.

Ciel nervously took note of the heavy, wooden door that Alois shut behind him, worrying about how quickly he could fling the ungainly thing open if he needed to make a run for it. The blonde was talking ninety to nothing about ... nothing as he led him up the stairs that were in the foyer. Ciel tried to glance over the railing, through where he assumed the kitchen was, knowing that homes this style usually had the back door there or in a smaller side room that was attached.

If the rest of the house had a definitive "uncaring grandmother" look, then Alois' room, had Ciel not known any better, could have been confused for that of a thirteen year old girl's. Instead of curtains there were multicolored plastic beads hanging in front of the window. Almost every piece of available wall space was covered in posters (mostly of attractive guys), some of which Ciel recognized (this one was from a movie, this was a band, etc etc) and some he hadn't a clue about (maybe that guy with no shirt and rock hard abs was a singer ... sure, let's go with that). The bed had to be at least a queen size, with purple sheets and a tangled mountain of different blankets and pillows. All of this was topped off with clothes. Like a damp forest being taken over by creeping moss, Alois' clothes seemed to be spreading out over the floor, bed, dresser and every other surface. Or maybe it was less like moss and more like quick sand, ready to snare the unsuspecting traveler, dragging them down to an eighty percent cotton, twenty percent polyester death.

"Thanks for coming over," Alois said from his closet, a closet that was about half the size of the bedroom in Ciel's apartment. "I've been trying to find something to wear for like, a fucking hour."

Ciel had to bite his tongue to keep from mimicking Sebastian, because his first reaction had been: "Are you being for serious with me right now?"

"Maybe if you had less clothes it wouldn't be so hard to pick," Ciel drawled (trying for dry humor when his skin was itching for him to start picking things up to fold).

"Pfft, more like I need to organize my closet, butch on this side and bitch on the other."

"And what are you going for today?" Maybe Alois wouldn't notice if he just folded one pile.

"Totes butch, you're bitch."

Ciel dragged his attention away from the mess. "Excuse me?"

"Yeeeah," Alois smiled apologetically, exiting the closet with a studded belt. "When I said a favor, I kinda legit meant a favor."

"What kind of favor?" Ciel wasn't doing such a good job of keeping the irritation out of his voice. He'd rather be tracking Sebastian down and groveling than playing dress up with this asshole. He had to continue to remind himself that he was doing this for work, and that needed to come before whatever personal predicaments he'd gotten himself into.

"See I'm meeting with the guy above me later-" Dealer terminology, the person who supplied Alois' product. Not necessarily the actual creator of the product, in fact that was very unlikely, high school related trade was probably the lowest on the totem pole. "-and me and him have been having some ... _disagreements_ lately, so I wanna stand up to the fucker."

"You're taking me to help you in a _fight_?"

"Nonono," the blonde waved it away as he turned in front of a mirror on the inside of the closet door, eying the belt skeptically. "I just wanna look ... you know, tough. And as pretty as I am it's kinda fucking hard to pull off, ya know?"

Ciel ignored the pretty comment. "So you need me for ..?"

"To be my bitch, duh. Hang all over me and admire my fucking guns, let me slap you on the ass and tell you to get me a beer and shit."

So Alois wanted to look ... "tough" by comparison. By comparison to Ciel. He wasn't sure if Alois was complementing him by saying Ciel was prettier than him or if he was being insulted because he looked like a push over.

"That's a horrible idea," Ciel sighed, telling the truth for once. "For one, no matter how ... _butch_ you look this guy knows you, and you might just piss him off and actually get in a fight. Second, I'm pretty sure I won't be able to play along if you slap my ass."

Alois turned and grinned at him. "Really? Your instincts'll kick in?"

"I can't be held responsible if I accidentally punch you." Ciel rolled his eyes. Alois and Sebastian had more in common than he was comfortable acknowledging.

"It's just pretend baby," the other boy laughed, walking back into the small cave of a closet. "Just play along for like, two hours tops, and I'll hook you up with a couple of hits of X, free of charge. Sound good?"

Ciel frowned, crossing his arms and shifting his weight from one foot to the other. Alois was acting strange, well, at least strange compared to the two brief encounters they'd had before. Those times Alois had be pretty singularly focused on what Ciel had perceived as seduction. Now, with some other goal in mind, the other boy barely showed an interest in Ciel besides his part in helping him achieve that goal. Where as before Ciel had thought that Alois might just be a malevolent person, bent on upsetting Sebastian, it now seemed that maybe his attempts to woo Ciel were really of little import to him, in the grand scheme of other events in his life. Ciel was hesitant to accept that theory as fact though, so felt the need to test the other teen's resolve.

"Well _I'll_ be pretending," Ciel called loud enough for Alois to hear him. "Are you sure you won't get too ... _into_ your role?"

The blonde walked back in front of the mirror, wearing a different shirt than before, and rolled his eyes. "Please, I like older dudes, but you already knew that."

Luckily the top wasn't satisfactory to Alois, so he disappeared once again, allowing Ciel's eyes to go wide without being noticed.

What did that mean? How was Ciel supposed to know that Alois liked older guys?

He remembered how cagey Sebastian had been about why he didn't like Alois, how his story had been statistically flawed by having two brothers, both of which were gay. And how Ciel had dragged a very vague, overly dramatic version of that same story from Beast and Doll.

Wasn't the simpler scenario more likely?

"How ... old are you?" Ciel felt his palms starting to sweat.

"Turned seventeen in November," Alois replied.

_"When kids break up it's fucking messy bro, it would make even less sense for us to be friends than it already does."_

Had Sebastian and Alois ... dated?

Alois was looking in the mirror again, new shirt, and frowning as he turned side to side. "What do you think of this belt? Does it say 'I'm super butch, wipe my hands on my pants legs instead of using fucking gay ass napkins' or does it say 'I'm too much of a dumbass to actually rebel against anything'?"

Ciel stared, still in a mild amount of shock at what might be a major revelation. "Uhm ..."

"Yeah you're right," Alois huffed. "I'll wear one without studs."

**xox**

Keeping money you'll use for a cab in a separate pocket as the rest of your spending money is a smart way to make sure you'll always have a ride home at the end of the night.

Taking a ride from a stranger, even if they seem friendly when you meet them, is ill advised.

**xox**

Alois liked to drive with his music at such a high volume that it made conversation impossible, which gave Ciel time to adjust to the possibility that before he'd come here Sebastian and Alois may have been together.

Really, it didn't make much of a difference did it? Everyone had been with someone else at one time or another and obviously they weren't dating _now_. Ciel was faced with the complicated emotion of disliking Alois just because he was Sebastian's (supposed) ex. He'd read about this innate dislike for people's previous partners (and more recently seen it in movies as well) and had always been perplexed by why anyone would feel this way.

But now, sitting next to Alois, he couldn't help but examine himself against the other boy.

Alois was definitely better looking than him. He was only a little bit taller but that added height gave him more definition, more curve at his waist, more (of what appeared to be) muscle on his arms, and just an overall lack of (what appeared to be on Ciel as) baby fat. Ciel had a plain, short hair cut that was mostly straight (except for his bangs), while Alois' hair curled at the tips, falling effortlessly into what a singer might call "elegantly disheveled".

And it was no wonder how Sebastian had always been harping about Ciel's personality if he was used to being with someone as talkative and outgoing as Alois. In fact, their mutual chattiness probably meant they'd spent many an hour playfully bantering with one another ...

Ciel's stomach turned uneasily (since when did he have such a weak constitution?) at the thought that every interaction he and Sebastian had had might have been compared to similar encounters with Alois. He couldn't help but think back to how Sebastian had maintained a steady conversation while they'd been kissing that morning, possibly meaning that Ciel didn't possess a technique refined enough to hold Sebastian's attention. Had Sebastian talked while he kissed Alois? Or had there not been any time for words with how much they wanted each other ..?

Another unfamiliar feeling cropped it's ugly, poisonous head, and before Ciel knew it he really, really, _really_ hated Alois, despite the futility and possible irrelevance of the sentiment.

Also surprising, he hated Sebastian a little too. What if the whole act of them pretending to be dating hadn't been to irritate Ciel, but Alois. For all he knew the two of them had broken up right before he arrived and Sebastian, being the absolute asshole that he was, had seized the opportunity to hurt Alois. Because if all of this speculating was true then they had most certainly had a bad break up, either that or Sebastian had been correct when he'd said that people their age couldn't stop dating mutually and respectfully.

And then Alois had turned around and tried to hit on Ciel just to piss Sebastian off! They were like two idiotic, cock sucking peas in a pod! Fuck them!

"Looks like he's not here yet," Alois mumbled, putting his SUV into park. Ciel hadn't even realized they'd arrived, and had to try to keep himself from looking around in a panic as he took in their surroundings.

Shit! He'd been so distracted he hadn't been paying attention the whole way here! He couldn't have told someone where he was if his life depended on it! Fuck!

"Should we circle the block?" Ciel extended hopefully, wanting to find some sort of landmark near here.

"Nah, mother fucker's probably running _fashionably late_, Lau's always here though."

Alois got out and Ciel followed, taking in all he could in the few steps to the door. They looked like they were in a low income neighborhood (lower income than Joker's), all the houses were old, partially run down one stories of varying (but mostly completely absent) styles. Several of them had chain link fences that covered the front and back yards accompanied by big dogs that barked threateningly at any passers-by. The sun was starting to set which highlighted the fact that most of the street lights weren't functioning.

"Oh, by the way," Alois said, stopping at the door. "I know you said you have asthma and shit but try not to cough or anything if we're smoking."

"When you say 'we' you don't mean me, right?" Ciel asked, angry for a million reasons and now a million and one at being told not to react to his _throat closing involuntarily_.

"Well I was kinda hoping you'd man the fuck up about it," the blonde grunted irritably.

"You're an absolute delight, you know that?" His irrational emotions were getting the better of him, leaking out in biting sarcasm.

"Need to get your smartass something to eat, fucking cranky as shit."

Alois rang the doorbell and they waited all of thirty second before a very ... _voluptuous_ girl answered. "'Sup Ranmao?"

She nodded, then looked at Ciel, raising one inquiring eye brow. Alois, true to his word, slapped Ciel right on his ass before introducing him.

**xox**

"This show is stupid," Alois repeated for the thousandth time.

After pleasantries had been exchanged (if you'd call them that) the four of them had settled in the living room (if you'd call it that) and began consuming a ludicrous amount of beer while watching some reality show about driving trucks over ice.

Well, Alois and Lau were drinking anyway. Ciel couldn't excuse himself out of it so ended up sipping daintily out of the same can for over an hour, not thirsty enough to enjoy the sour taste of the cheap stuff. He wasn't sure if the girl, Ranmao, was drinking either, since she kept flitting in and out of the room, sometimes bringing Lau more to drink or sometimes bringing a cellphone with her, leaning down to whisper in his ear, then exit, tapping a message away after receiving an answer so vague from Lau that Ciel couldn't even guess what the question had been.

Lau was exactly what you'd picture when someone used the term "stoner". Since they'd arrived he hadn't moved from his worn down recliner (in an equally worn down home, from what of it Ciel had seen) and alternated effortlessly between smoking cigarettes, drinking, smoking a hash pipe, and laughing at the TV, though what he was laughing at exactly wasn't clear.

The whole place reeked of weed, a smell that, to someone who didn't smoke like Ciel, could be best described as ... _ass_. It took a great deal of effort each time Lau passed his pipe to Alois for Ciel not to wrinkle his nose and lean away. He could almost feel the stink soaking into his clothes and skin, and wanted nothing so much as to take a shower and wash all his clothes ... twice. It wouldn't have been so potent if Alois hadn't insisted that Ciel sit _extremely_ close to him, now leaving him trapped with the blonde's arm around his waist.

If nothing else, he supposed, he was at least getting a little more information about how Alois' particular operation functioned. Though whether or not this small circle had anything to do with the drug Ciel had been called in to investigate had yet to be determined. As he had gathered, Lau's house was a base of sorts, where Alois and others like him picked up product (product being ecstasy, pot, and a small selection of prescriptions), though none of this product was made or grown here. The person who Alois had wanted to confront was the one bringing the drugs into the home, though, again, Ciel wasn't sure if that person was in charge of the entire operation or if he reported to someone else.

No amount of hits from Lau's pipe could deter the blonde though, the more time that passed the more agitated Alois seemed to get, tapping his foot impatiently on the coffee table.

"Where the fuck is Grell?" Alois finally asked Lau half way through their second episode of icy semi-truck driving.

Lau took an impressively long drag on his cigarette, burning through a third of it in one go, before answering. "Oh did he not tell you? He was too busy to hang out."

"Goddammit!" Alois shouted, making Ciel jump when the other boy stomped his feet down to the floor as he stood up. "I _told_ that mother fucker I needed to talk to him before I take anymore shit out!"

Ciel and Lau both watched Alois pace in front of the TV, Ciel in a reasonable state of surprise and Lau as unaffected as if Alois hadn't gotten up at all.

"Well he's busy," Lau shrugged, his mouth twitching up slightly, like he wanted to laugh.

"Oh no he fucking isn't," Alois growled. "I swear to God next time I see him-"

"You'll get your ass kicked?" Ciel jumped again (today's events must have worn him out because he was losing his edge) as he realized the soft voice that had spoken was Ranmao, who was leaning on the back of the couch right behind him.

"No!" Alois protested, though his voice came out a little high, like a child who was trying to convince someone he wasn't afraid of heights.

Ranmao handed Ciel a different drink in a glass. "It's soda." She answered when he frowned up at her. "Since you don't like beer." That was a little more observant than Ciel was comfortable with.

"You probably will," Lau giggled, continuing the conversation about Alois and Grell.

"You fucking suck bro, you should have my back on this." Alois had stopped pacing to glare accusingly at his friend.

"What's it to me, man?" Lau smiled, only giving a half shrug before he left his partially smoked cigarette in the ash tray in favor of picking up his pipe.

Ciel felt mostly lost about what they were talking about, but took note of everything they were saying along with their expressions and posture. This had a very high chance of being important information in the proper context.

Ranmao poked him on the cheek. "You'll get worry lines if you concentrate so hard all the time."

He blinked once before realizing that she was noticing him trying to pick up all the nuances of Lau and Alois' discussion. Even though he wasn't masking his expression and intent perfectly it still should be more difficult for someone to tell what he was doing.

"I'm just not following them is all," Ciel offered weakly, taking a drink to try and hide how disconcerted he was at being so transparent to someone.

"'What's it to you'? Do you want us to go to fucking prison?" Alois seemed more exasperated than actually angry now.

"Hazards of the trade," Ranmao chimed in, earning her a disapproving look from the blonde till he noticed Ciel and frowned.

"What are you drinking?" Alois asked suddenly.

Ciel paused for a moment, disappointed that the conversation might end. "I don't know ... Coke? Or Pepsi?" He looked up to Ranmao for an assist, but she only smirked at him.

"And you drank almost that whole glass?" Alois snorted.

He felt a wave of apprehension wash over him in a cold sweep. "... Yeah?"

Alois covered his mouth, trying to keep from all out laughing. "Ran, you're such a bitch."

"I try," she smiled.

"... What?"

Alois gave him a nasty smirk, reminding Ciel of those "what a pity" looks and tone he'd had the night before when he'd been sure the other boy was planning on taking advantage of him.

"Well I _did_ say I'd give you some free X."

Oh ... _crap_.

**xox**

No matter how much your drinks cost, if you leave them unattended for any amount of time you should order a new drink.

Never accept an opened drink from someone you don't know.

* * *

_a/n: thank you for all the alerts, favs, and reviews! and special lesbian thanks to Tif for being such a supportive Sally /heart heart_


	7. Chapter 7

**Disclaimer: Kuro belongs to Yana Toboso.**

**warnings: AU, OOC, mature themes, mentions of non-con, generally lame**

* * *

**Chapter 7**

Sebastian liked to complain. Well, maybe not so much _liked_ to as he just _did_. He complained about everything with not much rhyme or reason to it, and even complained about opposing things alternately.

Like right now, as he trudged through town, he had a constant string of curses playing in his mind.

_Fucking cold as shit wind. Too goddamn cold to fucking function out here. But do I get a fucking car? Noooope. "Not till you're older Sebastian." Well fucking sorry, _dad_, but I collapsed and froze to death walking every goddamn where. At my funeral I hope everyone blames you. Jesus fucking Christ it shouldn't be this fucking cold outside the North Pole! I'm moving to the fucking jungle, or a fucking active volcano, or the fucking _sun_, I swear to God_ ...

Where as, just this past summer, as he walked home one day, a similar profane dialogue had been going on.

_What the literal _fuck_. If I sweat any fucking more I'm going to fucking cease to exist! What the shit, it is way too fucking hot out here! Did the fucking Earth shift and we're on the equator now? Did we switch places with fucking Mercury? I swear to God I think my fucking shoes are melting to the goddamn concrete. Next fucking summer I'm going somewhere cooler, like fucking _Hell_. Jesus Christ_.

Of course his complaining was really to distract him. Distract him from thinking about his friends at each other's throats, at Beast in the hospital, at the ache in his wrist from punching Ciel, and from Ciel in general.

If he was someone who was more honest with himself (which he wasn't) he would've been considering what he needed to do to fix all of those things. But as it was he pushed it all aside, deciding to deal with them one at a time, and in person, and instead focused on how fucking stupid cold it was outside. Not that the later of those problems was making it very easy to ignore.

His phone chimed.

_Sebastian?_

Fuck you. Not talking to you, too busy freezing to death.

_I know you're there, stop ignoring me._

Nope, nope, nopity nope. Go fall in a hole and get mauled by a tiger.

Sebastian coughed, his throat partially raw from breathing heavy in the cold air.

Were his pants starting to get stiff? Was the still semi-wet denim starting to literally ice over? Or was he on another crazy steep hill and didn't realize it? Was he getting old? Maybe it was time to really consider quitting smoking? Because he really should not be this out of breath, it was kind of pathetic.

He was headed to Dagger's house, which was the closest to the hospital, first, to start trying to repair the broken ass bridge of Dagger and Joker's friendship. He had a pretty good idea of what they were fighting about, as fucking stupid as it was, and if Beast's mom had let him talk to her he might have had a better understanding of where everyone stood. Or at least where the person who mattered, Beast, stood. But oh well, let's fly fucking blind as shit and get these two idiots to stop fighting about a fucking girl, Jesus Christ, this was too _Dawson's Creek_ for his liking.

He probably needed to give Dagger a heads up before he got there though, what with the blonde being grounded harder than he'd ever been in his life (none of them had ever been _arrested_ before), so that Sebastian didn't roll up into some screaming match between Dagger and his parents.

Just as he took his phone out to make the call it lit up again with another text from Ciel.

_I said I was sorry, what else do you want from me?_

Sebastian wanted Ciel to leave him the fuck alone for five goddamn minutes! Jesus Christ! Could he just be pissed off by himself for a while before he sat down to deal with all the fucking bullshit he'd spewed in the heat of the moment less than an hour ago! He already fucking regretted it! It that what Ciel wanted to hear! Fuck him! Live with a little misery for a fucking second! He'd fix this shit later! Shit!

The phone only rang twice before a voice that was definitely not Dagger's answered. "Hello?"

"Uh, hey, Dagger?" He hoped whoever was on the other end couldn't hear his lame ass wheezing, out of breath, and his teeth chattering.

"Dagger isn't allowed to have phone calls," was the curt reply. It was a dude's voice so it had to be his dad.

"Uhm, yeah I figured, this is Sebastian, I just need to come by for like, fucking- 'cuse me-" He tried to cough over the curse. "-five minutes to pick up some school stuff ..."

"What kind of 'school stuff'."

Fucking homework? A book? Goddamn number two pencils? Shit.

"I lent him my ..." Great time to forget every subject he'd ever taken ever. "... Math. Algebra. _Transition Algebra_ notes, but I kinda need them back sooo ..."

A pause. "Fine. _Five minutes_ Sebastian."

"Thanks man. I mean, sir."

"Mmhmm."

He'd barely had time to hang up before he got _another_ text.

_Fine, fuck you too._

God fucking dammit make up your mind you stupid little piece of shit! You can _not_ send a fucking text all like "I'm sorry" and then start fucking cussing someone out in the span of less than a fucking hour! Shit!

Of course he knew what Ciel was doing. Pretty much anyone who'd ever gotten in a fight with their significant other (was Ciel his significant other? Shit ...) had gone down this same stupid road.

First you try to get them to talk to you normally, all like "Let's just talk about it" or "Just let me explain". Then you graduate to bitching out, all like "I'm sorry, please talk to me" or "It was all my fault, please stop ignoring me". And the final stage, just do whatever shit you think will provoke a reaction, all like "Fucking asshole, I never want to speak to you again" or "Whatever, you have a small dick anyway".

And that's probably what had Sebastian pausing, staring at the angry text for a second. Ciel was acting like a _regular person_. This was literally how normal people get into text messaging fights, and Ciel (alleged robot) was acting like any dumbass, lovestruck teenager would.

Sebastian was still _pissed_, and he didn't want to even consider dealing with Ciel right then. But the thought of the younger boy sitting around, analyzing every bullshit second of the last twenty-four hours and giving himself a damn ulcer trying to figure out what he was supposed to do to get Sebastian to talk to him made him feel ... just a little guilty. Ciel had fucking thrown up all over himself worrying about Beast and then Sebastian had basically told him to go eat worms all while he wasn't _entirely_ sure that Ciel even knew how to handle _actual_ relationships ...

He was still pissed. He wasn't ready to forgive him. He wasn't ready to talk about forgiving him. But he _was_ ready to tell him he'd be ready _later_. If that made any sense.

He'd typed out "Listen, I'll fucking talk to you later today if you'll fucking chill out and-" when his phone died.

He hadn't been home since like, early yesterday afternoon and that was just too long for the fossil of a cell phone he had.

Fucking ... _great_.

**xox**

Sebastian wasn't a secret-y secret agent like Ciel, not by any stretch of the imagination, but he did feel like he was doing some ops of the covert variety when Dagger handed over a notebook on his front porch, the first page having messages Sebastian was supposed to send to different people. It was kind of like smuggling letters for someone in prison, and what Dagger had written was appropriately vague, like he'd been afraid of the messages being intercepted ... _by enemy spies_.

Only that first page had anything worthwhile written on it. The rest actually looked like ... algebra. Like, seriously. Sebastian was pretty sure this was Dagger's legit math notebook. He continued flipping through it though, like he was checking to make sure everything he needed was there, in case Dagger's parents were watching from the windows or some shit.

"How long are you grounded?" Sebastian asked under his breath.

"Indefinitely." Dagger replied just as quietly.

"What's wrong with you and Joker?" He cut right to the chase, appropriate spy priorities.

"Fucking ask him," the blonde tisked, turning his head away like he didn't want to talk about it. Sebastian fought back his urge to shove Dagger and demand an explanation. He only had a couple of minutes to get fucking information out of his friend before they'd be bared from seeing each other over the rest of Christmas break. Only hearing Joker's side of whatever this story was would be useless as shit for mending fences.

"Dude, you've got fucking two minutes before you're talking to a volleyball named Wilson for the rest of break, tell me what the fuck is up."

"You _know_ what the fuck is up man," the blonde growled lowly. "Mother fucker says he's not interested then suddenly when everyone starts to move on he _gets interested_. He's being a little bitch."

Sebastian glanced up. "Joker asked Beast out?"

"Everything _but_," Dagger mumbled. "He's been calling her nonstop and when he got ungrounded he wanted to fucking hang out all the damn time. He had his fucking chance man, and he turned her down. He doesn't fucking want her, he just doesn't want anyone else to have her."

"Beast isn't some dumbass chick who can't think for herself man, she can date whoever the fuck she wants. You're acting like she's some kinda territory you're both trying to shove your fucking flag in or some shit." Sebastian wouldn't so much call himself a feminist as he would just say he wasn't a complete idiot. Beast was just as much his friend as these two fucking _neanderthals_ who were both trying to hit her over the head with a fucking club and drag her back to their respective caves.

"I fucking _know_ that. But she was so hung up on him for the longest time and then she finally stops fucking ... _pining_ and shit and then he rolls in and fucks everything up!" Dagger had maintained the same hushed tone Sebastian had been using till the end where he couldn't seem to help but raise his voice in frustration. Sebastian glanced behind Dagger to the window that looked into the living room. He could just make out a dark shape getting out of a chair, probably Dagger's dad getting up and coming to tell them their five minutes were over.

He blurted out the rest in a rush. "Listen, I'll fucking talk to Joker, and Beast too when I can, but no matter what either of you say this shit is up to her. I don't want the two of you fucking beating the shit out of each other in goddamn hospitals over something that isn't even your fucking call, you know?"

Dagger dug his hands deep in his pockets and leveled a serious look at Sebastian. "Dude, I don't want to be a fucking consolation prize."

"I know bro ..."

"If Joker backs off and Beast suddenly decides she wants to go out and shit with me ... I don't even know if I'll want to anymore ..."

"Dagger, it's time to come inside." His dad was standing behind the screen door, frowning in that super disapproving way that only dads could do. Moms had the ability to summon Satan, dads could call forth the deepest, most powerful levels of disappointment known to man, the kind that made you bow your head in shame even when it wasn't _your own_ dad staring at you disapprovingly.

Sebastian wanted to make it clear to Dagger that he was acting like kind of a dumbass ... _dude_, wanting to beat up another guy for a chick (who was supposed to be their _friend_, not their fucking trophy). But with the whole getting arrested and grounded forever shit he decided to try to say something supportive, something smart and supportive, but between being glared at by Dagger's dad and the fact that Sebastian wasn't that smart he was at a loss. "It'll be okay, bro, shit - it'll work out."

"Yeah," Dagger huffed, giving a weak smile as Sebastian started backing towards the steps of the porch.

"Doesn't sound like you two are talking about math." Oh check out Dagger's dad, fucking deductive as shit over here. Asshole.

"Nah, we're talking about music, Sebastian just got into that band I went and saw a while back," Dagger lied, rolling his eyes. Sebastian frowned, not following the joke. The blonde gestured at his jacket. "The hoody you're wearing? I saw them live."

"This is a fucking _band_?" He grabbed the sleeve of what he'd thought had been a totally nondescript jacket, trying to find a name or logo he should have recognized.

"Smooth," Dagger laughed, the first genuine smile Sebastian had seen him make that day.

"It's not mine, fucking _Ciel_, buying shit when he doesn't fucking know what the hell it is ..."

"Awh, sharing clothes now? Fuck you and your happy relationship."

"_Dagger_-" His dad was glaring _and_ growling now. Double douche G's.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm coming. Sebastian, speaking of Ciel I put something in ... _your_ notebook for you, in the back. See you when school's back in."

"Yeah, see you," Sebastian replied, having to force out a casual tone when he was embarrassed as shit about wearing merch he didn't fucking know about.

Dagger gave him one last wave before shuffling past his dad and back into the house, his dad trying to stare an angry hole into the back of his head the whole time.

Sebastian, shoulders slouched, started back through the fucking Arctic tundra that was their damn town, flipping the notebook open to the back. He came to a halt when he saw the pictures Dagger had put there. They were two identical photographs of Sebastian and Ciel, sitting on the bleachers at the football game they'd gone to. Dagger had taken the picture when Sebastian had been harassing Ciel by tickling him and the timing had worked out where it looked like they were playing around, both smiling, and having a good time.

Sebastian stood there a moment, thinking about tossing them out or ripping them up, just do something to destroy them. Even though Dagger didn't realize it, the pictures were like a physical manifestation of what a fucking liar and cock sucker Ciel was. He pretended he was trying to be friends with Sebastian's friends, but he didn't even know them well enough to know something had been wrong with Beast last night at the party. He'd been _making out_ with Sebastian while some dude had been trying to take advantage of Beast. Was any of that shit real either? Or did he give as few shits about Sebastian as he did for Beast?

All the sympathy he'd felt earlier for Ciel's frantic text messages dried up like goddamn water in the desert. Maybe he hadn't been acting like a real person at all ... or maybe that was the point, he'd been _acting_.

He closed the notebook and headed down the road, ready to walk all the way across town to Joker's house.

In a way, he was kind of glad his phone had died, it had kept him from making the son of a bitch feel any better about himself. Or had kept Sebastian from falling into his little fucking game.

Fuck him.

**xox**

There was no time limit for hearing Joker's side of the story, so Sebastian didn't rush it, instead they both sat watching TV and smoking (indoors, thank fucking Christ), for a couple of hours before he brought it up. Joker had been quiet the whole time and seemed more than a little distracted, and Sebastian wondered if he was worrying about his love life or actually worrying about Beast herself, because unlike with Dagger, he had plenty of time to tear Joker a fucking new one for being a dick.

"Sooo-" Sebastian started, pushing his cigarette butt into the almost overflowing ashtray, the black cloves were starting to outnumber the regular cigarettes since Joker's dad was working today. "What's going on with you and Dagger?"

His friend twitched before taking a long drag, probably to give himself more time to think (fucking Ciel, Sebastian didn't used to pick up on that shit), then shrugged. "Nothing."

Sebastian waited a second, giving Joker the chance to add something, then continued when he didn't. "Yeah? It fucking looked like 'nothing' when you two were trying to kill each other earlier. Did you assholes actually start _inside_ the hospital? Since you got thrown out like a couple of punks?"

"_Dagger_ started it," Joker replied indignantly, snapping his head to the side to give Sebastian a glare, the little beads in the small braids at the nape of his neck clicking together.

"Is this the part where I say 'I don't care who started it, I'm going to finish it'? Because if I need to yank your ears like someone's goddamn _mom_-"

"Listen, he was fucking pissed because I wasn't fucking up Beast's ass all night when he'd made it pretty fucking clear he wanted me to back the fuck off-"

"So the two of you _have_ talked about this-"

"If by talked you mean him sending me a fucking threatening ass text telling me not to talk to one of my like, _best friends_, then yeah-"

"You know what?" Sebastian growled, lighting another cigarette, twenty fucking miles past pissed off. "She's in the fucking hospital because some dude fucking _drugged_ her and you two whiny ass bitches can't seem to shut up about which one of you is going to fucking _bang_ her long enough to give a shit. Why don't you both lay off the whole like, territorial pissings long enough for her to fucking sober up from being goddamn _roofied_?"

They both turned angrily back to the TV, silent, as they pretended to be watching some dumbass _Ice Road Truckers_ marathon.

"We're a couple of insensitive assholes, huh?" Joker mumbled, miraculously finding room in the ashtray to put out his cigarette.

"You and Dagger maybe, I'm like, in touch with my feelings and shit over here," Sebastian snorted.

"That why you're hanging out with me while your boyfriend is all hungover?" Joker laughed.

Sebastian scowled. "Hungover?"

"That's what he told me earlier, while you were inside talking to Beast, or her mom I guess. 'Cept when I saw him last night mother fucker looked cold sober and was wanting _wine coolers_ ..."

Fucking dumbass, way to cover your fucking ass.

"His parents are out of town so we raided the liquor cabinet when we got back to his place," Sebastian lied, squeezing his own cigarette in the ashtray and pissed that he was lying to his friend and pissed that he was lying for Ciel at all.

"Oh, cool then."

Ciel didn't seem to realize that even though Joker wasn't some crazy master mind criminal detective that his _fucking hobby_ was clicking shit together. He always knew who was saying shit, who told them that shit, and who told _them_ that shit, and wasn't a fucking push over about knowing what was going down enough to tell if all the shit was even true. He wasn't looking at every person like they had ulterior motives like Ciel was, but if someone was being lazy about a lie they were telling him he'd fucking notice. Sebastian wasn't so much concerned with Joker busting Ciel's ass on something for Ciel's sake, or even his own academic sake anymore, but he didn't want his friends to find out _he'd_ been lying to them too. Now that he'd decided he didn't give a shit about Ciel's fucking job or getting suspended he was mainly focused on damage control, and was trying to make a mental list of shit he'd been forced to tell Ciel, though he'd tried to keep as many of their personal details out of conversation as he could.

"You know," Joker said, interrupting Sebastian's guilty ass musings. "He asked Beast and Doll about Alois and Luka."

A cold chill zipped down Sebastian's spine and he nearly broke his neck turning to Joker. "Are you being for serious with me?"

"Yehp," his friend sighed, picking at a piece of fuzz on the carpet.

"Fucking ... shit! What did they say?"

"The same thing we always say."

"_We_? Did he like, fucking ask you too?"

"Nah, just the girls."

Sebastian knew why. Ciel would think that Beast and Doll would be more likely to gossip than Joker and Dagger. Fucking crafty ass little son of a bitch.

"Fuck, man. Did he buy it?"

"Why wouldn't he?" Joker shrugged. "You told him the same shit, right? Or did he even talk to you first?"

"Yeah, but I didn't think he would like, fucking investigate something _I_ said."

"_Investigate_ something _you_ said? Does he 'investigate' other shit?"

Fucking slipped. Fuck, fuck, _fuck_. Change the fucking subject.

"Well whatever, we aren't even fucking talking right now," Sebastian huffed, trying to say it offhandedly.

"Why not?" Even in the dim light of only the TV Sebastian could see Joker's face drawn in concern.

He hated himself for using this same shitty "we're fighting" tactic every other fucking day. The fact that his friends wanted so much for him to be happy made these little dick moves suck that much more. And it was probably all the guilt he was carrying around that made him feel vindictive enough to sell Ciel's ass out.

"At the party, right? Ciel walked in on Beast and some dude, and the mother fucker just thinks she's fucking _hooking up_ with someone, and didn't even say shit about it till after we found out she was in the hospital." Sebastian was waiting expectantly for Joker's outrage, but was let all the hell down.

His friend whistled. "That blows man."

He missed a beat. "What?"

"I said that blows-"

"Yeah, I heard what you fucking said, aren't you fucking pissed at him? Little shit should've fucking _said_ something! He should've come and found you or Dagger and-"

"How the hell was he supposed to know she was drugged?" Joker asked, one eyebrow raised. "He take a police dog with him last night and I didn't notice?"

"No ... but ... he should've known Beast wouldn't get with some random asshole at a party-"

"Dude, you realize that kid is way too far up your asshole to know any of us that well?"

Sebastian went quiet. He'd been totally ready to rant with Joker about what a cock sucker Ciel was for the rest of the night, and then that mother fucker had to go and be all ... _empathetic_?

"Man," Joker continued, shaking his head. "You sure you aren't like, looking for reasons to be pissed at him? You two fight so much it looks like you're trying to fucking sabotage shit ..."

"The fuck? Why would I do that-"

"You need to tell him about Alois and Luka." Joker's voice was serious, but his expression was pulled down in sympathy. "Get it out there, stop beating yourself up about it, and move the fuck on. It's okay to be happy, asshole."

Was he being ... _serious_? Sebastian did his best to not even _think_ about all that shit to keep from throwing himself off a goddamn _cliff_. And Joker just wanted him to fucking ... _tell_ Ciel about it?

Sebastian was about to argue when Joker's phone chimed. He frowned when he read the screen and started typing a reply to what Sebastian guessed was a text message. The pause gave him time to think about what his friend said. He hadn't asked about how Joker _felt_ about the whole Beast and Dagger thing because he was more concerned that the two guys were acting like asshats when Beast had gone through some heavy shit. Maybe Joker was battling with the whole friendship versus more than friends thing and was coming from a place of self loathing too? But Joker having spectacularly bad timing on growing the fuck up was a completely different ball game from Sebastian's shit.

"I can't tell him about that shit," Sebastian muttered as Joker put his phone down. "He'll fucking hate me."

"Hey man," Joker sighed. "Usually I'd be all like 'the past is the past', but it's pretty clear Alois is trying to get all friendly with Ciel. And it'll probably get all kinds of fucked up if Alois tells him before you."

"Fuck ..."

"Speaking of," Joker continued, waving his cell. "You turn your phone off or something?"

Sebastian frowned, thinking Joker was trying to change the subject now, but not ungrateful for it. "Nah, it died, why?"

"Alois just texted me and asked if you were here, says he has something of yours."

"The fuck?" Sebastian stood up, almost falling the fuck over because his legs had gone to sleep (seriously, they'd been sitting there for hours), and started patting down his pockets (Phone, check. Wallet, check. Keys, check). "What the hell does he have? Wait, why's he wanting to give it back? Tell him to fuck off."

Joker shook his head, looking back at his phone. "Sorry bro, I didn't know what was up so I told him you were here. He's coming over to give it to you."

"Shit, I'm gonna bail then."

"What if it's like, important?"

"I can't think of what the hell it could be, besides, he'd be more likely to fucking _bribe_ me or something ..."

"Stop being a bitch, I got your back."

"Yeah, because I'm worried about the punk kicking my ass, _please_."

"Seriously, now I'm all curious and shit."

"Pssht, fine, but if he's coming to return an _ice pick_ or some shit and stabs me I'm blaming you."

"Fair enough."

Sebastian sat down on the sofa instead of the floor, not wanting to be all stove-up if Alois was coming there to start shit. He couldn't even remember the last time he'd had a normal conversation with the blonde that wasn't all clipped sarcasm and passive aggressive remarks ... which was when he was struck with a fucking _horrible_ thought.

"Dude, what if he really _is_ coming over here to fucking bribe me?" He had a sudden urge to start chain smoking like a champ. "All like 'give me a hundred bucks or I air out your fucking dirty laundry to your boyfriend'? Shit!"

"Which is exactly why you need to fucking tell Ciel," Joker huffed. "Honesty is the best policy ... for your broke ass."

"Fuck," Sebastian groaned, letting his head fall back on the back of the couch. But _then again_, what the hell did he care if Ciel hated him? He'd written the little shit off, right? What did it matter now? Fine then, let Alois come over and try to black mail him, he'd be all like "Whatever loser, tell him, like I give two shits", and totally throw Alois off his punk ass game.

Joker stood up too, stretching, and (tried) to ask casually, "You said you talked to Dagger before you came here, right?"

Sebastian glanced over at his friend who was trying to look interested in the dumbasses on TV driving trucks. "Yeah."

"Did he say anything? About like, me? Or Beast? I mean I know there's more important shit going on, but just wondering, ya know?"

"He said some shit, yeah."

He knew Joker was about to ask about it, and probably try to defend himself against whatever Sebastian told him, but just then lights shown through the window, illuminating the dark living room for a brief moment before they went off again and they heard car doors opening and closing.

"Here we go," Joker said smirking. "Ready to get shook down by someone a hundred pounds smaller than you?"

"Are you calling me fat or calling that fucker skinny? He's not that much smaller than us." Sebastian rolled his eyes as he got up and headed to the door with Joker.

"Alois is very_ petite_."

"Yeah well so's your dick so ..."

"Don't get snippy with me jackass, I'm not the one going after your boyfriend."

"He can _have_ him-"

"Stop being a little bitch-"

Joker switched on his porch light and opened the front door. Sebastian had been looking at the red head, about to say something like "Your face is a little bitch", out of steam to argue with his friend when they were fixing to have to deal with Alois, when he noticed Joker's eyes go wide. He only had half a second to frown before Joker had turned towards him, trying to use his whole body to block the door.

"Hold up, fucking calm down-" He was already saying it before Sebastian realized what was going on, both of Joker's hands gripping his jacket and trying to push him back into the house.

"The hell-?"

And then he saw them. Right outside the door Alois had Ciel pushed up against the side of the house (the wall to the living room extended past the entrance) and was kissing him, Ciel's hands were slack at his sides, and the blonde was bracing one arm against the siding and leaning over the younger boy.

Sebastian had been mad before. He'd been _fucking pissed_ before too. There were a lot of times when he'd said or done shit he regretted (and would usually apologize for later) all because he'd gotten angry and had been stupid. Still, at those times he could definitely remember a teeny tiny voice in the back of his head going "Dumbass, chill out, you're going to fucking do something stupid and - well shit, you already did it, hope you're happy, fucking idiot". Sometimes he heeded that little voice, back up a second and fucking _thought_ about shit so he didn't fucking break something, or himself. Other times he ignored the hell out of it, barreled ahead all like "Fuck you, common sense", and would fuck something up in all his dumbass rage.

This was the only time in Sebastian's life where he didn't hear that voice at all.

He shoved Joker hard, separating the hold his friend had on him. There was some crashing sound (wasn't there a table with a vase and a few picture frames by Joker's door?), the glass inside the screen door rattled dangerously when he threw it open, if it cracked or broke he didn't notice.

If he'd been thinking clearly he might have marveled at how light Alois felt when he grabbed him by the collar and threw him into the yard. He might have wondered whether that crunching sound he heard when he jumped on top of the blonde and punched him in the face was the sound of Alois' nose breaking or the sound of someone walking on the gravel that lined the walk way up to Joker's front door. He might have been confused about why his arm stopped in the middle of bowing back to hit Alois again, or what was lifting him up and off the smaller teen.

He wasn't thinking clearly though, not until he'd started to scramble back to Alois to keep fucking him up and Joker punched him right in his stupid ass grill.

Clear and normal sound came rushing back like he'd been in a vacuum, making his ears ache like they'd been released from pressure.

"Sit the fuck down!" Joker yelled at him, standing between Sebastian and Alois, fists clenched and ready to fucking _make_ him.

Sebastian stumbled dizzily, being assaulted with all the fucking _noise_ he hadn't heard for the last three minutes. Noises you don't usually notice like the fucking wind blowing, cars on the busier roads a couple of miles away driving, people's fucking dogs barking and shit. But above it all was that fucking tool box Alois, laughing like a goddamn son of a fucking whore, even though his nose was gushing blood like the menstruating vagina he was.

"Oh my Gawd Bass you are such a fucking loser!" The blonde laughed, turning over and holding his side.

"Shut the fuck up you fucking-" Sebastian took an angry step forward, only for Joker to push him back and get right in his face.

"Go fucking talk to Ciel," he said through gritted teeth. "Fucking _talk_, don't fucking get into a goddamn fight on my fucking front lawn, where I fucking _live_ asshole. I'll deal with Alois."

Sebastian stopped, glaring at Joker for a second before he took a fucking breath. The last thing his friend needed was for the cops to get called about some kids getting into a fight when his dad wasn't home.

"Yeah," he nodded. "Sorry, bro ..."

"Sorry for busting your lip." Joker patted him on the shoulder and gave him a gentle push back towards the front door. Sebastian licked his lips and tasted blood, though he still had so much adrenaline pumping through him he didn't really feel it. Now he just needed to curb that shit so he didn't beat the fucking hell out of Ciel.

Sebastian exhaled, his breath making a cloud that dissipated up in the air, and noticed how fucking cold it was again, especially since his body was covered in fucking sweat now. He walked up to the younger boy, who hadn't moved during the whole scene, still leaning up against the side of Joker's house. He heard Joker talking to Alois behind him, something like, "Come sit under the street light, let me look at your fucking nose."

He swallowed once, his throat feeling raw from all the chain smoking and yelling in the cold ass weather. "So what, all those fucking 'please talk to me' texts were bullshit?" Though Sebastian _had_ punched Ciel earlier ... fucking Christ he needed to reign in his anger before he got a car. He'd fucking take bitches out left and right if he ever got road rage ... or just get arrested for beating the living fuck out of people.

Alarm bells started going off in Sebastian's head when Ciel turned to him and grinned. "Hey Sebastian."

"... Hey. Did you fucking hear me?"

"I missed you."

He blinked dumbly for a second. "Uh ... sorry? Wait, no I'm not fucking sorry, what the fuck are you doing? I thought _you_ were the one fucking apologizing? News flash, making out with another mother fucker is kinda a step _back _-"

"_Oooooh_." Ciel said, interrupting him, finally moving away from the wall, almost tripping over himself, and looping his arms around Sebastian's neck.

"What-" Ciel tugged his head down and kissed him, humming into Sebastian's mouth and running his tongue over the place where it was bleeding.

Even as his lip stung, a huge wave of relief washed over him, relief he hadn't realized he'd been waiting for all day ... but wait. Ciel had _literally_ been kissing Alois like, fucking five seconds ago. This shit still didn't make any fucking sense.

Sebastian grabbed Ciel by the wrists and held him out at arm's length. "What the fuck is going on?"

"Is he okay?" Joker asked as he walked up slowly, looking as confused as Sebastian felt.

He turned back to Ciel, who seemed content to let Sebastian hold him there. His face was flushed as shit, his bangs were stuck at odd angles around his forehead by sweat, and his pupils were blown up like goddamn saucers.

"Are you ... fucking _high_?"

Ciel bobbed his head, still smiling like a dumbass. "Pretty much."

Joker snorted. "On what?"

"Ecstasy. Well, probably MDMA, the powder form. Though MDMA is harder to make, and therefore more expensive, it's easier to put the powder in drinks where as when the pills dissolve outside the body it can sometimes dilute the effects and-"

Sebastian slapped a hand over Ciel's mouth.

Stupid.

Fucking.

Goddamn.

_Dumbass_.

"Someone was paying attention at D.A.R.E. meetings," Joker said dryly. "What do you mean 'probably'? You don't remember?"

Sebastian tried to convey with a super hardcore stare that Ciel need to watch what the fuck he was saying, but he could still feel the younger boy grinning under his hand so he wasn't sure if he caught on.

He stopped covering Ciel's mouth to let him answer and just fucking hoped that he still had a grip on his shit. "My symptoms match ecstasy, euphoria, higher body temperature, some slight dehydration, over sensitivity to touch, and, though I've been able to resist it so far, I have the strangest urge to _dance_-"

"Why the fuck did you take something if you didn't know what the hell it was?" Sebastian was having trouble staying clam again, tightening his grip on Ciel because, resistance to dancing obviously at an end, he'd started swaying back and forth.

"I didn't take it," Ciel stated matter-of-factly, trying to wiggle loose to grab at Sebastian. "Alois' friend put it in my drink without me knowing."

Joker uncrossed his arms and Sebastian let go of Ciel in shock and they both shouted in unison. "Are you being for serious with me right now!"

**xox**

It took a lot of screaming, wild and angry hand gestures, and several "Calm down bro!"s from both Joker and Sebastian before they got the full story from Alois, who, by the way, was pretty wasted himself. If you're wondering why the fuck the asshole was driving when he was drunk, well join the fucking club, because that was just one thing in a long line of fucking bullshit that Joker and Sebastian were pissed about.

Their first knee jerk reaction had been thinking that Ciel getting drugged was related to Beast, but after they simmered down enough to _talk_ to Alois rather than yell and shove him against his own car they found out Alois hadn't even known about Beast being in the hospital.

"Rohypnol? The fuck I look like, a goddamn pharmacist?"

To which Ciel tried to assist with useless ass information on the legality of Rohypnol in the fucking US and how it was probably a more professional dealer who'd have access to it and that was about the time Sebastian decided to give up the use of one hand to keep it over the little punks mouth before he fucking blew all his shit. And that was a lot easier said that done because the cock sucker wouldn't stand still now for a million fucking dollars.

According to Alois, he was going to give Ciel a couple of hits of X anyway, but he and his friends had thought it'd be _hilarious_ to slip it in his drink.

"And I guess the whole making out shit was just a big joke too?" Sebastian had seethed. Half of him wanted to know if that had been the only thing Alois and Ciel had done and the other half knew it was better not to even ask. Better for Alois' health that is.

The blonde had laughed, laying down in the back seat of his fucking big, stupid ass SUV and kicking his legs in his evil as shit glee. "You should've seen your fucking face! Worth the broken nose about five times over!"

"His nose isn't broken," Joker muttered, just as irritated with Alois' fucking _antics_ as Sebastian.

"I wanted to kiss you but you're mad at me," Ciel added, having gotten out from under Sebastian's hand and now trying to get his own wandering ass hands under Sebastian's shirt.

"Oh, well that makes it fucking okay as shit then, as long as I was your first choice."

"Give him a break man." Joker was rubbing at his temples, looking eighty different degrees of done with this shit. "He'd have macked on a like, _cow_ if he'd have thought it winked at him right now."

Alois had sat up abruptly. "OMG, we could call you Bessy instead of Bassy."

Ciel was the only one who laughed at that.

**xox**

Sebastian finally dragged Ciel into his apartment somewhere around midnight after playing fucking car relay for the last hour.

First they all drove Alois' car back to the fucker's house and got rid of him. Then Ciel, Joker, and Sebastian had used Ciel's car to take Joker home. And finally, Sebastian had driven himself and Ciel back to the apartment.

They'd had to pull over and reassess the seating arrangement twice since Ciel and Alois couldn't seem to keep their seat belts on or their fucking hands to themselves. Originally Sebastian had sat in the back seat with Ciel, thinking that if the younger boy was going to try to feel someone up he'd rather it be him than Joker, but with Sebastian next to him Ciel had doubled his groping efforts and had even managed to get Sebastian's pants undone before they pulled over and switched. With Joker, Ciel was content to snuggle and tell him his hair was pretty. Much to Sebastian's obvious fucking _distaste_ he'd had to drive with one hand on the steering wheel and the other gripping Alois' shirt because the dumbass was determined to open his door and get out while they were moving at fucking fifty miles an hour.

Once they were back at Ciel's place the younger boy had declared "It's hot" and had disappeared into the bathroom.

Sebastian sat on the couch in the living room, head in his hands, and seriously considering bugging out and walking home.

He was physically and emotionally exhausted. Physically from all that fucking rage burning through him like a goddamn wildfire, and only getting the minimum amount of relief from the one hit he got in on Alois before being pulled off, which left his nerves frayed and tattered as shit. Emotionally from just ... fucking Ciel. He'd been waffling all day about whether he gave a shit if the punk lived or died and having all his stupid _feelings_ shoved on him all at fucking once when he'd thought that Alois and Ciel were hooking up used up the last bit of mental stability he had.

It also made him feel a little bad for Joker. Dagger had said that Joker was only interested in Beast because she was with someone else, which, with no similar situation to go by, Sebastian had kind of agreed with was a shitty move. But it had taken Alois sticking his tongue down Ciel's throat for Sebastian to recognize that he gave a lot of shits about the punk living or dying. He just wished it could have taken a day for Joker to realize the same shit about Beast instead of a couple of years.

He looked up when he heard a loud "thump" from the bathroom. How long had Ciel been in there? He'd heard the water running a while ago like he'd turned the shower on ... but the mother fucker had been falling all over himself all night, he didn't need to be getting in a slick ass shower! He'd fucking break his stupid neck faster than shit!

The moral of this story is don't fucking sit around and fucking _brood_ ... while there's a stoned as fuck idiot unsupervised in your vicinity.

Sebastian went to the door that connected the bathroom and the kitchen, cursing when it was locked. He knocked loud enough where Ciel could hopefully hear it if he was in the shower, though Sebastian didn't hear running water anymore. "Hey, Ciel, you okay?"

Nothing.

"Fucking-" He went through the bedroom, to the other door, and was going to kick the shit in if it was locked too, when Ciel exited, wet (like seriously, it didn't look like he'd tried to dry off at all), not wearing pants, and maybe not underwear either because he had on a big ass sweatshirt that covered part of his thighs ...

Wait ...

"Is that ... _my_ sweatshirt?" Sebastian asked, torn between concern for Ciel's well being (he didn't know if he'd fallen in the bathroom or not) and concern for how ... _dirty_ ... his sweater looked on the younger boy. Like, seriously, Sebastian wore that mother fucker almost every day and he was pretty sure no one had ever gotten sexually frustrated about it ... like he was right now with it on Ciel.

"Yeah," was all the reply he got before Ciel basically _climbed_ him to kiss him.

Sebastian pulled him off, trying not to look down at Ciel's pale, and smooth as fuck looking legs as he did so. "Jesus, you should've taken a like, cold shower in there-"

"I did, it's hot." His hair and skin were soaked and the material of the sweatshirt was sticking in some places. His eyes were still unfocused, though he seemed to be trying to stare pointedly at Sebastian's mouth.

"Are you ... wearing some boxers or something ... I don't want you rubbing your junk all over my clothes." (A good enough excuse, right? ... Oh, fuck off.)

"Uhuh." Ciel unceremoniously lifted the sweater, revealing some dark gray boxer briefs that were even more snug looking than probably intended since Ciel had apparently decided to fucking _air dry_.

"Alright ... good ... come on." He walked Ciel over to the bed and hardly had to push him at all to trip him up to fall on the mattress. "Now fucking ... _stay_ ... or some shit, you need to drink something ..."

Ciel looked up at Sebastian with his fucking flushed ass face, hair wet and curling with little water droplets running down his neck, bending his legs in towards himself and making the sweatshirt ride up on his thighs ... his voice had sounded airy (and high as fuck) all night, so when he spoke in a deep, needy husk Sebastian felt it in his gut ... like someone stabbing him with fucking _Viagra_. "Hurry."

... You know those movies, usually romantic comedies, where the hot chick is all like "Can you get me a drink/light my cigarette/whatever?" and the main character dude is so stoked the hot chick is even talking to him that he fucking falls all over himself trying to do whatever it was she asked him to do and ends up like, you know, fucking knocking over a paint can or some shit, and he's got blue paint all the fuck over him as he holds out his lighter for the hot chick trying to act like he's totally smooth and didn't just fuck all his shit up in front of her?

Yeah, that was pretty much Sebastian because (I shit you not) when he turned to go to the kitchen he ran right the fuck into the door frame. "Shit!"

"You okay?"

"Yes! Fucking ... shut up!" And he stumbled off to the kitchen, rubbing his forehead like the graceful ballerina he was.

This was fucking bad. He needed one of those long sticks with the loopy wire thing at the end, the shit like, animal control used, to handle Ciel. He was pretty sure if he let the younger boy get his fucking ... _clutches_ on him he was done for. And how much shit was he going to get in the next day when Ciel had sobered up and was all like "I can't believe you fucked me while I was under the influence" and ... shit! He'd been so busy being pissed and planning on never talking to Ciel again that he'd totally forgot to get his anal sex research on! How the hell was he supposed to succumb to temptation when he didn't even know the right way _to_ succumb! Wait, wait, wait, that was good though. He couldn't possibly "accidentally" have sex if he didn't know how ... right?

Maybe?

Hopefully?

He realized he was standing in front of an empty fridge, staring at vacant, chilled shelves. What the hell. What did this kid eat? There was like, a bottle of ketchup and half a candy bar in here. He'd been hoping to find some bottled water or like a sports drink or some shit.

When he started opening cabinets to get a cup he found Ciel's lack luster as fuck selection of food. All canned ravioli and instant noodles of varying artificial flavors. Shaking his head, he filled a glass with tap water (the freezer didn't even have an ice maker and all the ice trays were empty, this kitchen was the nutritional version of a Greek tragedy). He needed to drag this mother fucker to the grocery store, for seriously.

Back in the bedroom Ciel had pushed one sleeve up and was trailing his fingers from wrist to elbow, shivering each time he did so. Sebastian watched him for a minute, seeing if he'd notice him standing there, then finally nudged him. "Hey loser, drink this. It's just tap though ..."

"Tap water has fluoride in it which can decrease dental decay. Most bottled water has fluoride filtered out, and home filters may remove it as well. Drinking tap water is a good way to protect your teeth without having to go through any extra work-"

"Ohmygawd, why the fuck do you even know that?"

Ciel turned his head to look up at him, though he still hadn't sat up or stopped petting himself. "Everyone knows that."

"No, I can guarantee they don't."

"It could be a conspiracy by dentists."

"What-"

"So that people get more cavities."

"How-"

"The toothpaste market is a twelve billion dollar a year industry. Those commercials that say such and such out of such and such dentists prefer this brand? The dentists sell their support to the toothpaste industry, which in turn uses their substantial resources to hush nay-sayers of bottled water."

Sebastian and Ciel stared at each other in silence for a good minute. Ciel looking high as a kite, but serious as fuck, and Sebastian frowning till he was cringing, disappointed in himself with how much sense Ciel's conspiracy theory made ... though if he was smarter, it probably wouldn't.

"... Whatever. Here, drink your fucking tap water then and stick it to the man or some shit."

Ciel propped himself up and crawled toward the edge of the bed with a fluidity that he didn't normally possess (or even possess like, five fucking minutes ago), all smooth and timed, like Ciel had been slowly stalking towards sexually frustrated teenage boys his entire life. Instead of taking the glass he held out his arms to Sebastian. "Touch me."

"So what, you only have two fucking speeds? Mulder or fucking Jessica Rabbit?"

"If I pretend to understand those references will you kiss me?"

"Mulder from the fucking _X-Files_, balls deep in every fucking conspiracy known to fucking man-"

"Like the Question."

"... What question?" Sebastian huffed as he continued. "Jessica Rabbit, you know, the sexy cartoon character-"

"I'm not a cartoon character."

"But you _are_ sexy?"

"_You're_ sexy."

"And all it takes is some mood altering drugs for you to realize it-"

Ciel grabbed Sebastian's jacket (well, Ciel's jacket technically) at the shoulders, yanking him down hard and making him drop the cup and spill water all over the bed and floor as he tried to keep from falling on top of the other boy. "Fuck-!" He caught himself with his hands on the bed, freezing when he noticed he was hovering over Ciel, who was still holding him by his clothes and was fucking ... _smoldering_ at him.

"Sebastian ... I missed you ..."

You know how there's like, some pitch or some shit that people can sing and it'll make glass shatter or whatever? Sebastian was pretty sure there had to be something like that with arousal too, because whatever octave Ciel's voice was at right then made his dick twitch. Or it could have been the sultry as fuck look he was giving him. Or the fact that he was rubbing his naked legs against the inside of Sebastian's thighs. Or it could have been all three.

It was definitely all three that distracted him enough for Ciel to fucking _throw_ him on his back, pulling the hoody over his head and arms in the process.

"Goddammit," Sebastian groaned, rubbing his scalp where his hair had gotten stuck in the zipper.

Ciel climbed on top of him super fast, all those slow seductive movements apparently a fucking _ploy_ to throw Sebastian off. And he was about to fucking say something, all like "Get the hell off loser" and push Ciel back on the bed, but once the younger boy had ... mounted him he immediately pressed both hands flat on Sebastian's stomach and gave him a heavy feel from his pants line up to his collar bone, pushing his shirt up as he went and Sebastian just ... laid there ... because ... well ... he was just fucking weak as shit like that.

Ciel leveled him with another one of those _heated_ stares. "I think your chest and stomach are sexy."

Insert a comical bobbing of Sebastian's Adam's apple and a stupid ass "gulp" sound. "... Thanks."

"I don't ..." Ciel ran his teeth over his bottom lip and Sebastian couldn't seem to tear his eyes away from watching the pink color of them going redder when more pressure was applied. "I don't like it."

It was hard to focus on what Ciel was saying when he was sitting on Sebastian's lap. All his body heat was seeping through both their clothes and pretty soon he was going to notice Sebastian's dick poking him in the ass.

The body heat, the water that was falling off Ciel's hair and onto Sebastian's now exposed chest, little white teeth digging into rosier and rosier lips, and not to mention Ciel's cold fingers, one set stretching and contracting on Sebastian's stomach, thumb tracing his belly button, and the other set drawing small circles just _under_ one of his nipples ... Ciel could have told him the true name of God and he wouldn't have realized it.

"... What?" His abdomen wouldn't stop fucking twitching.

"I don't like that I know who Mark Hamill is."

True name of God, no ... but _Mark Hamill_?

"I don't like that it's important now," Ciel groaned, moving both his hands to Sebastian's lower stomach and lifting up to ... _grind_ down on Sebastian's lap.

His penis, which had been expressing _moderate_ interest with the fact that Ciel was sitting on top of him, was now _extremely_ interested in what was going on, straining up inside Sebastian's pants, causing him to lift up (without his consent), craving some more friction. Needy ass piece of shit dick.

Ciel kept rolling his hips till Sebastian couldn't take it anymore and grabbed his waist, directing the infuriating movements in a way that would rub against his dick more.

"Fucking ... Mark Hamill isn't important ..." Sebastian breathed out, pissed at himself for letting Ciel dry hump the shit out of him but reasonably sure that tomorrow, when he had sobered up, he wouldn't be nearly as pissed at him for this over them having actual sex.

"I remember everything you say ... Mark Hamill is Luke, George Lucas directed it, he also wrote _Indiana Jones_, that had Harrison Ford in it ... who also played Han ..."

In a different situation Sebastian might have been impressed that Ciel had retained even that basic information, but right then he couldn't give two shits about George mother fucking Lucas. "You don't have to remember shit man ..."

"I want-" Ciel gasped and it took Sebastian a second to realize why. There was only one hand on his stomach now, Ciel had slid the other one inside those (tight little ...) boxers and was ... jerking off. Like ... for seriously. What was worse was even though he couldn't _see_ Ciel's dick or hand, Sebastian could fucking _feel_ him touching himself, with every down stroke Ciel made his knuckles brushed against Sebastian, the thin shit his underwear was made of leaving little to the imagination. "-I want you to l-like me ..."

"I _do_ like you," he mumbled, mesmerized by the other boy fucking _masturbating_ on top of him.

"Ah ..." Ciel ran his free hand up to Sebastian's ribs then used his nails to scratch harmless lines down his chest, which made chill bumps pop up all over Sebastian's skin as he arched up into the younger teen's touch. The dry humping came to a halt, Ciel's legs going rigid, yet overcome with trembling, as he sat up straight and leaned his head back slightly, but still maintained eye contact with Sebastian, who couldn't help but buck up, desperate to keep his fucking cock against Ciel.

The flushed look Sebastian was receiving gave a new fucking definition to eye sex, and (fuck him running) he felt precum sliding down the head of his dick under that fucking stare.

Sebastian winced when he felt Ciel's nails dig into the top of his left hand (now that he couldn't reach his chest anymore), but it only made him hold onto Ciel's hips harder, trying to pull him back down onto his lap. The pain was short lived though, because Ciel gave a gasp, then rushed his left hand to his boxers, pulling them down, and Sebastian could finally _see_ him, all fast wrist jerks over too red ... _fucking dick_ before-

"... S-Sebastian-"

Hot spurts of cum landed in little strings and droplets on Sebastian's chest and stomach, each released wave seeming to relax Ciel's legs, till he had lowered all the way back onto Sebastian, still holding his own cock, and smearing the last beads sticking to the tip onto Sebastian's skin.

They both were quiet, breathing heavy for two totally different reasons. Ciel, because he was coming down from an orgasm, and Sebastian, because he desperately wanted to _have_ an orgasm.

The younger boy swayed a bit, eyelids drooping, then let himself fall over and off Sebastian, going still.

Sebastian laid there, mostly breathless, covered in Ciel's fucking ... _jizz_ ... that was quickly getting cold. He turned his head to the side and found the little piece of shit laying there with his goddamn eyes closed.

"What ... the _fuck_ man! You are _not_ going to sleep!"

"Mmm," was the only reply he got, making him about ready to slap a bitch across the face.

"You fucking little ..." He sat up awkwardly, trying to keep the cold semen from dripping off of him onto the sheets. There wasn't a towel or fucking tissue box in sight and when he stood up it all started slowly running down towards his pants. "God fucking dammit-" He struggled his shirt over his head and started a super inelegant stumble to the bathroom.

"What are you doing?" Ciel asked lazily from his bed.

Sebastian didn't bother looking back at the little shit, such was his fucking rage at getting used for fucking target practice or some shit. "Going to jack off in the toilet like a fucking _gentleman_."

And he slammed the weak ass door to the bathroom as angrily as he could without fucking breaking something.

**xox**

He didn't really though. It was still way too unbelievably lame to masturbate while thinking about someone who was in the next room. Maybe one day he'd be a fucking desperate loser who creeped outside someone's bedroom with his dick in his hand, but not today.

_Today_ ... anyway ...

**xox**

Watching the slow realization of the previous days events dawn on Ciel's face when he woke up was probably one of the best things Sebastian had seen to date.

It started with a frown, his lips pursed like he was about to say "What are you doing in my bed?". The frown slowly melted away, eyes still partially closed from sleep getting wider in increments, a blush started on his cheeks, getting darker and more pronounced and spreading down his neck and all the way to the tip of his ears.

Sebastian had been planning on sulking, maybe even acting a little pissed, and saying something like "Way to leave a brother hanging asshole" but seeing the younger boy throw his head down into a pillow, groaning in embarrassment while muttering "Oh my God" a couple of times more than made up for Sebastian's fucking blue balls.

"Sooooo, how'd you sleep?" Sebastian asked, sugary sweet, grinning like a fucking dick and stroking Ciel's hair. "Have any good dreams? Hmm?"

"Uhg ... my head hurts ..." Ciel replied, voice muffled by the pillow he was face down on.

"Which one? Because you were going at it pretty hardcore last night, understandable if you're like, _sore_-"

"I've got a headache," he growled, looking up at Sebastian with gritted teeth and a face red enough to be confused with a fucking tomato.

"Probably dehydrated," Sebastian drawled, getting his hand slapped away when he tried to pinch Ciel's cheek. "I _tried_ to get you to drink something, but you were way more interested in seeing me naked-"

"Shut up!" Ciel staggered up, probably too fast, because he fell back over, head landing on Sebastian's shoulder (where he'd slept all night). Sebastian ... tried to not laugh as the younger boy groaned again, rubbing at his face. Tried. "Shut up."

"I'd say I was sorry, but I'm not." Sebastian gave Ciel some mock sympathy, patting him on the back like a dick as he continued to giggle (it was giggly kind of moment).

"... Whatever, I'm going to go take a shower," Ciel said, irritated, as he got up, slower this time.

"Hey, hold up." Sebastian grabbed him by the sleeve of _his_ sweater, pulling him back. All his previous cockiness faltered as he cleared his throat. "Did you wanna like ... talk, or something?"

"About what?" Ciel was standing in front of him by the bed, and Sebastian had his legs hanging over the side of the mattress. Even though Ciel was looking down, he wasn't looking him in the eye, more like he was staring straight at the carpet between Sebastian's feet as he mumbled and fidgeted.

He licked his lips. _About what_ was right. What _didn't_ they need to talk about? All the shit that had gone down at the hospital? Whether or not Alois had done more to Ciel than kiss him in front of Joker's house? Why Ciel had willingly gone to hang out with Alois in the first place? The truth about Sebastian, Alois, and Luka? None of them were topics that Sebastian really wanted to bring up, they all had the potential to lead to a fight ... or worse. So he went with what he'd been wondering about in the hospital parking lot, in front of Ciel's car, before everything had gone to hell in a hand basket.

"Do you wanna ... like ... go out with me?"

"Where?" It was apparently too early to expect Ciel to be on top of his game.

"Dumbass, like, _go out_ like ... _date me_, like not pretend-"

"Like go steady?"

"... Yes because it's the fucking fifties. We'll hold hands at make out point then go to the goddamn _malt shop_ ... I hope the fucking Fonz is there in case the _jukebox_ won't turn on-"

"I was just trying to make sure I knew what you meant asshole," Ciel replied angrily, attempting to yank his arm free.

Goddammit. Great moment to fucking make fun of someone, when you're asking them out. Ten out of ten for Sebastian's douche bag score.

"Sorry, sorry," he added quickly, standing up and linking his and Ciel's fingers together on both hands to keep the younger boy from stomping away. He tilted his head down, trying to get Ciel to look at him. "Yeah, it's what I meant, going out ... like ..."

"Your boyfriend," Ciel assisted, a new, less exaggerated flush to his cheeks, seeming very interested in examining Sebastian's fucking _toes_.

"... Yeah," Sebastian cleared his throat again.

This was way harder than he'd thought it'd be. Or at least way less smooth. He'd imagined pressing Ciel all up against a wall, Ciel's hands all tangled in his hair and all like "Hurry, hurry Sebastian, take me" and Sebastian being suave as fuck all like "First promise you'll be mine" or some cheesy shit and the screen would go to black and come back to them laying in bed and Ciel would be all like "Best sex I've ever had" ... or something. It'd been a solid plan, he'd thought, and was disappointed that it was his own awkward teenage ass that was ruining it.

"But like, for real this time," he amended. "Like we don't pretend to be all fucking ... cuddly and shit, like we'd just legit cuddle ... I mean, if you wanted to cuddle ..."

Ciel finally looked up at him, one eyebrow raised. "Are you trying to tell me something," he deadpanned. "Do you need a hug?"

"Listen tool box, I'm trying to be fucking ... _sincere_ and shit over here and-"

"You made fun of me for saying 'go steady'-"

"Because nobody fucking says 'go steady' unless they're giving a bitch in a poodle dress their letterman jacket-"

"Well no one uses the word _cuddle_ three times in the same breath unless they're starving for affection-"

"Will you fucking go out with me or not!" Sebastian demanded finally, starting to get a little worried that Ciel was stalling a rejection.

"Don't ... _fucking_ yell at me when less than a day ago you _hit_ me and said you never wanted to see me again!" He pulled free of Sebastian as his voice raised, taking a step back.

"I'm sorry! Okay! I didn't fucking mean it-!"

"You can't say 'just kidding' when you act like an asshole-!"

"I know! I wasn't kidding, I mean - shit!"

Sebastian ran his hands through his hair in frustration. He'd been trying to keep his pansy ass _feelings_ to a minimum, but felt like he didn't have another option after letting his stupid mouth dig him into a fucking hole.

"I was fucking stupid, alright? I was fucking worried about Beast and it wasn't like the dude who roofied her was fucking ... _available_, so I jumped all over your shit because you were _there_ and I convinced myself that you should've been ... fucking _psychic_ or some shit, and I'm sorry because that was a fucking dick move, and then Alois like, _kissed_ you and I realized ... I don't want you fucking kissing anyone but _me_ ... so just - fucking forgive me okay? And be my goddamned boyfriend and I'll try super fucking hard not to be a jackass from now on, alright!"

He tried to take a steadying breath, his fingers were tingling and cold because all his body heat had rushed up to his fucking face, leaving him standing there, blushing like a goddamn fourteen year old, talking to his fucking c_rush_. Which ... he kind of _was_, besides the fourteen year old part.

Ciel was _just slightly_ tilting his head to the side, and Sebastian watched his eyes move minutely around, examining his expression, chewing on his bottom lip again as he stood there trying to determine whether or not Sebastian was lying. He wanted to get pissed about Ciel not trusting him immediately, but let that go in favor of sweating fucking bullets waiting for him to respond.

"Yeah, okay," Ciel said finally, his cheeks going pink again, leaving them both looking like a couple of fumbling, blushing idiots. "I mean, I forgive you and ... yeah. Yes. I'll ... _actually_ go out with you ... instead of fake going out ..."

"Fucking ... _sweet_," Sebastian exhaled, flopping back down onto the bed, rubbing at his face in a useless effort to get all the heat to leave it.

Ciel sat down next to him, pinching the bridge of his nose with his forefinger and thumb, apparently just as fucking exhausted from the _ordeal_ as Sebastian. They were both quiet for a while, recuperating, till Ciel spoke.

"So ... we're dating now."

"_Exclusively_," Sebastian added sharply, wanting there to be no confusion.

Ciel rolled his eyes. "Duh." (For the record, only 90s TV teenagers say "duh" un-ironically). He pulled at the end of Sebastian's sweater, that he was still wearing, like he was trying to cover up more of his legs. "So ... now what do we do?"

Sebastian considered it for a moment, going through the list of things couples did.

Go on a picnic (whatever, it was fucking December).

Go to the movies (it was Sunday, and the day before Christmas Eve, the theater probably wasn't even open).

Go to a fancy ass restaurant with soft candle light and stare longingly into each other's eyes (might be a good time to add that Sebastian was broke as shit, not to mention he wasn't a sappy fucking _bitch_).

He sighed, out of ideas, and turned to Ciel. "Wanna make out?"

"... Yeah, alright."

**xox**

Sebastian was about to swear off fucking cell phones. He was going to turn into a fucking electronic ghost (like from _Pulse_) and murder anyone who had more than one bar of signal (for the record, don't watch _Pulse_, it isn't very good).

He'd been pressed up against Ciel, his pants and boxers almost down to his knees, (Ciel's underwear in a similar location), one hand on Ciel's bare ass, the other on the small of the younger boys back (over the sweater, he'd wanted to keep it on), while Ciel had both his arms wrapped around Sebastian's waist. They'd been in the middle of the difficult process of kissing while also rubbing their fucking _erections_ against each other. Difficult because as they were both pulling at each other, too fucking horny to have anything close to a rhythm, one of them would inadvertently gasp, breaking the kiss, while the other continued with trying to fucking _eat_ the other ...

Right about the time when Sebastian moaned (Ciel giving his mouth a break in favor of sucking hard on his throat), feeling like he might actually be close to fucking coming for goddamn once, was when Ciel's phone rang.

"Ignore it," Sebastian growled. He was already planning on throwing a trash can through the front window of his nearest wireless provider.

"I am," Ciel nodded immediately, gripping the back of Sebastian's thigh, urging him on.

The ringing stopped, whoever it was going to voice mail, as Sebastian rolled Ciel onto his back and propped himself over him, almost _panting_ like a fucking loser when the younger boy didn't wait for Sebastian to to press back onto him, instead lifting himself up, rubbing the slick head of his dick on the base of Sebastian's ...

That same generic ass "came with the phone" ringtone played again, not the same one that Ciel had Joker set to, but the same one from just a second ago.

"God fucking dammit!" Sebastian wanted to ignore it but it was surprisingly difficult to get off with fucking _La Cucaracha_ playing. "Who the fuck is calling you?"

"I don't know," Ciel mumbled, running his fingers lightly over Sebastian's hip bones, apparently able to stay in the mood even with his ridiculous ass ringtone. "I'm not going to answer it, it's probably Alois ..."

"Oh _hell_ no." Sebastian crawled over the other boy, grabbing the damn phone.

"Sebastian, leave it," Ciel whined, sitting up and looping his arms around Sebastian's neck, trying to pull him back to kissing.

"Hey," Sebastian answered the call, trying to sound manly and threatening, all like "stop calling my boyfriend fucker". "Who the fuck is this?"

There was about two seconds worth of a pause before the last voice Sebastian ever wanted to hear on the opposite end of him _cursing_ at them spoke. "_Sebastian Michaelis_."

He froze, immediately covered in a cold sweat, eyes going wide. Ciel frowned, tilting his head to take in Sebastian's scared as shit expression. "Who is it?"

"H-Hi ... mom ..."

**xox**

Sebastian hadn't been home in almost three days, his cell phone dead for two of them.

Joker, being a helpful son of a bitch, had only been too happy to give Sebastian's mom a number she could reach him at.

That fucking _asshole_.

* * *

_a/n: i'll be home for Christmas, you can count on me~_


End file.
